


The Innocence of Youth

by Whynoteh



Category: RWBY
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, F/F, F/M, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 20:14:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7478358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whynoteh/pseuds/Whynoteh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Third part in a series, sequel to 'The Songs we'd Sing' and 'A Knight, A Champion, A Rose', so much plot has been built up. War has broken out in Remnant, Vale and Atlas against Mistral, Vacuo, and the White Fang, and the students of Beacon find themselves spread to the four winds, forced to fight for different sides while they struggle to keep focused on the real threat, the Grimm and the ever evolving White Fang, while also dealing with their own conflicts; Everyone is lost with Ozpin in prison, Pyrrha has the second half of Amber's soul, Sun and Blake are in enemy territory, Weiss is still in recovery, and Ruby edges closer to a breakdown after seeing a Grimm she couldn't explain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where the Pieces May Fall

One week and one day had passed since Pyrrha and team SSSN's boat, or rather the fishing boat granting secret passage, had set sail from Vale when the ship anchored itself in the harbors of Mistral. They got to see first hand that the Sea Braver was a speedy boat, a necessity to outrun water borne Grimm, and that in the week's time had sailed north from Vale, went between the northern coasts of the mainland and the southern coast of Atlas heading east, followed the beaches of northern Mistral in the shallow waters, went all around the peninsula, and finally pulled into the eastern facing bay of the eastern Kingdom. In that time, Pyrrha and the leaderless team had learned of the news regarding the kingdoms stances on the massacre, and their immediate declarations of war. As expected, Vale, the victim of the attacks in the last couple years that Pyrrha herself had witnessed on all occasions one way or another, proclaimed all out vendetta. Though she hated to admit it, she more than understood why they choose to do so, and couldn't fault them. Atlas soon after sided with Vale and their new goal to incarcerate all Faunus and eliminate the White Fang. Vacuo argued the numbers of the massacre were greatly exaggerated and rejected the middle kingdom's initiative. Mistral sided with Vacuo. It was agreed that in thirty days time, restrictions on inter-kingdom combat would be lifted, the month's time given so that each kingdom had time to set up defenses against Grimm attacks amongst other things. That alone was enough to keep everyone awake at night and question the future, but Pyrrha had plenty more to be concerned about.  
Amber's soul was anchored to the redhead's body. Since they sailed, her mental and emotional double vision had almost completely disappeared, but the foreign presence was still very noticeable, drifting like a intangible wax in the lava lamp that was Pyrrha's form. It irked her immensely. And the thought that she had stolen someone's soul had not cleared from her guilt yet either.  
And were it not enough, Vale's bold declaration forced her to leave behind all her friends, her family members born of other mothers, and flee to her homeland. She left behind Jaune, the man she loved and the man who loved her. Pyrrha's flat bed pillow was soaked with the salt of her tears.  
A wooden plank slid onto the bustling harbor of Mistral's edge, a terraced city on a hill with white alabaster and yellowish sandstone buildings draped with ivy covering every square block of the central slope with roof tiles ranging from brick red, faded blue, and charcoal black adding depth beyond the stencil thin shadows casted by the rising sun across the cloud spotted horizon. A comforting thought occurred as the captain of the ship shook her hand farewell and her feet carried her away. She realized that she was home.  
On the southern side of the white light that was central Mistral, Old Town, a collection of exquisitely carved wooden meeting halls, houses, huts, taverns, and street stalls, connected directly to the forested Mountainside Neighborhood where she grew up. Her father had to have been still asleep on the couch, still clutching family photos, just like how she left him when she left for Beacon for her second year, she thought whimsically. That would be her first destination. Or it would have been, had not a young teenage boy in sunglasses and a disheveled middle aged woman approached her and greeted her by name.

"Ms. Nikos," welcomed the woman, "Headmaster Yelette of Haven would like you to meet her right now." The woman politely ignored Pyrrha's cagey reaction and looked to the three young men tailing behind the girl. "The three gentlemen may come if they wish, though Missus Yelette would prefer if they did."

Off the same boat Pyrrha and the others traveled, Cinder, Mercury, and Emerald, all in disguise, disembarked with sighs of ashamed relief. They strutted hastily past the also disguised Pyrrha, focusing instead on the three Mistral natives. Once out of earshot, Mercury spoke.

"Finally! I was about ready to go on a murder spree if I had to see that blue haired nerd mope around one more time."

Emerald clawed her palms with her fingernails, "Okay, I get that me and that Sage guy have matching skin tones, but dammit, he was on me like flies on stink. Always offering hugs," she deepened her voice to impersonate the boy, "'oh, I know how hard it must be, I'm sorry...'" She cast a hateful glance to the waters, teeth grinding. "And the thought of getting swallowed whole in the water sure didn't help me sleep."

The head of the trio rubbed her furrowed brow. "Focus," she said, her voice tired with the sort of stress someone develops from consistently orchestrating plans upon plans with precise detail and attention while being surrounded by seemingly incompetent children in comparison. "If we want to find Winter, Spring, and the second part of Autumn, we need to find a certain someone who can find people. But first, we need to establish contact with our agents..."

Pyrrha, Sage, Scarlet, and Neptune followed the woman and boy along streets they all remembered to a location the three boys knew very well: Haven Academy. Perched north of Mistral as a separate area with the intent to have somewhere to move people in times of emergency, similarly to Beacon in relation to Vale, it shared many of the same facilities as Beacon, just made smaller and had fighting pits that surrounded the perimeter of the land. It differed most though by its approach in architectural taste however, where Beacon was like a grey castled cathedral with gardens of flowers organized within plots of space, Haven was a tan airy palace with decorative pergolas extending from archways and walkways, with wired fruit baskets hanging underneath dark green vines sewn into the lattice work of the open slats. Once at the tallest tower of the somewhat modest academy, all the differences in the world didn't stop the four young adults from feeling massive deja vu when presented before the old headmaster, as her office felt like an almost carbon copy (shape wise) to Ozpin's tower, except in different colors and ironworking windows and curtains instead of glass panels.

The headmaster, Mrs. Yelette, was a strikingly beautiful woman of braided silver hair, a curved figure, and piercing gaze. Though her well advanced years showed through, she carried herself remarkably in a soft gold button down shirt with rolled up sleeves held back by thin strap tabs, a sage green scarf that hung low, metallic bracelets of true gold and platinum, and well fitting... blue jeans. All but Sage found the combo tasteful yet odd. "Ahh, so you finally got here?" she half barked at the four of them, catching them well off guard, then she looked to the woman and child, fluttering her hand as she said "your contracts are fulfilled."

"I'll give the invoice to what's-her-face, the new professor" squeaked the boy in sunglasses, voice cracking. He adjusted his red sleeveless shirt to sit right on both shoulders, one strap refusing to stay put.

"Don't bother, she couldn't find her ass with a stick. Just give it to me tomorrow. Oh, and uh, when was the last time you updated the roster?"

"Bout a week ago, I was going to check it again tomorrow," he told her with a tired sigh.

"That's fine."

"Also, I set up a third account, so when you're signing it, I'll put a post-it with designations on the side for you to copy from."

"Got it. You're good to go." The two escorts let themselves out, and the headmaster stood and measured up the four native foreigners, taking steady steps towards them. "So you came back huh? You decide that Haven isn't good enough for you, that you'd rather go to Beacon and play with the other kids, feel special, play schoolyard romance while you're at it..." Unlike Ozpin and Glynda, who towered over their students, Yelette met them eye to eye, but her presence was just as commanding if not more so as she pushed into the personal space of the others, glaring at them inches between their faces, growling out loud her thoughts. "But that didn't really work out for you, did it? No?" They nodded no, stepping back and cowering to the woman. "No, it didn't. So, what do you think my reaction is when I find out that three of four of my moronic boys who went tra-la-la-ling off originally and a girl who never gave me a chance come home after their amusement park ride got cut short?" 

A little hot ball of rage lit up in Pyrrha's chest, driving her to stomp her foot down and raise her voice, something she did not expect to do, especially to a headmaster, starting "stop right there! That's not fair! You have no idea what-"

She stopped when she felt Scarlet's hand on her shoulder. Pulling the female redhead back, he finally greeted his old headmaster. "That's the first thing you say to us after all this time? I feel home already ma'm." Pyrrha gave a confused look behind her, Neptune and Sage both breaking out into sheepish grins along with their teammate and headmaster.

"I'm glad you're back boys, you were some of my more promising students," she said, now more relaxed with obvious worry weighing on her some. "And you, Pyrrha, you were going to be my most promising student, but who was I kidding, Ozpin always attracts the star bound ones."

"I uh, uhm... I'm sorry?" the younger girl stammered slowly. She had difficulty with the change in attitude, her intellectual faculties still sluggish from the emotional overhaul from last week.

"We have a lot to talk about, a lot to do, and only so many hours before I drink myself into a stupor," she said with a low hearty chuckle. "None of you got to bring your baggage, did you?" she asked, already knowing full well the answer.

"No ma'am" answered Sage, "what we're wearing is all we have," he said with arms raised in a sign of tired submission.

"Hmph, as I thought. Boys, take yourselves and Ms. Nikos here down to your old dorms and rest. You know when lunch is, return to me here tomorrow after lunch."

"Understood" they all echoed.

She turned to Pyrrha and politely continued to say, "and you, Ms. Nikos, desperately need a change of clothes, something a little more red, something you would be more comfortable in rather than male's sailors clothes. I'll have a seamstress take your measurements in half an hour, she'll make you something nice."

"Uh, thank-"

"It won't be like what you were wearing before though, thankfully, it'll be something a bit more tasteful, less revealing. Honestly darling, you usually look like a high class hooker" the headmaster spoke freely and casually.

"Uhm... thank you?"

North of Vale, at the cusp of where the waters of the oceans reached farthest inland sat Firebase Alma, a mile long clearing of hundreds of tan canvas tents in a variety of sizes with a half completed concrete bunker housing field command in the center of it all. Adjacent to that was the start of a asphalt airfield with one fully erected ship hangar capable of housing ten Bullheads if lined two by five. Many more facilities were planned for creation over the next three months, but in seven days this was what they had, and the war started in 22 days.  
The firebase was pulling in Vale's military personnel and equipment by the shipload. Draftees and volunteers that had passed a basic physical the day before were getting rushed examinations before starting an equally rushed training program. The day after being titled official huntsmen and huntresses, the students of Beacon were among the bodies shipped in under Qrow's name. Most drop ships didn't touch down or even lower a ramp for trained personnel to jump from, less graceful people like Jaune landing with a great thud. Qrow, who accompanied them from Beacon, lead the 19 fresh graduates to the tents set up just for contract groups like them, all set up at the easternmost point of the firebase and the farthest point from the airstrip.  
A lot of the roaming soldiers measured the party as they walked, the group being made up of the broken teams of JNPR and CRDL, Yang, and miraculously complete teams ORCA, BNSH, and BLNK. Something in the air had a third of them sneezing.

"We have arrived" growled Qrow, slinking in the moderately elaborate establishment. They all hemmed and hawed as the tent filled them with a odd sense of home. It was a four walled tent with the corners following a line up to the center which was held in place by a thick mast about four meters tall, the mast probably one of the trees that was cut down to clear the area. The whole space was roughly thirty by thirty feet, with rudimentary curtain set-ups splitting the space into a middle aisle with three 'rooms' on either side, two sets of bunk bed hammocks each 'room' (for a total of 24 hammocks), and brown horse blankets carpeting the rest of the ground. Basic rectangular chests scattered the tent, not twenty in total but close, and when Qrow called them to "sit down", they used the chests as seats.

"This doesn't look too bad" commented Yang, the only one who at the moment felt safe speaking out around the disgruntled man. The sound of people setting up more similar tents, people sneezing and Jaune hiccuping, moving crates, ships flying overhead, and shouting during their exercise regimens made sure that not a moment ever felt silent.

"I requested it specifically so we wouldn't get stuck out in the rain with shit tarps or something, speaking of which..." he trailed off, looking up. The hazy clouds were opening up, and the start of rain could be seen landing on their canvas ceiling. "Now that I have your attention, I'm going to reiterate what was half heartedly discussed yesterday, because some higher ranking officers will ask you questions, and you need to know these things even if they don't ask." His hands landed on his hips, long legs pacing below them. "This is the state of affairs. Some civilians are volunteering and some are being drafted; they're making up the majority of the army. Non-arrested and non-graduated trainees from Beacon like you guys pre-yesterday are filling in military ranks, all compulsory. Huntsmen and Huntresses with questionable loyalties are in the same boat, and are taking direct orders. We are under contract which reads we will give services to the Vale military as combat units separate from the military, and you all are my employees, and as such don't report or answer to their ranks but to me. That's an important detail I want you all to remember. If they order you to do something, you don't have to do it. Of course, if you end up being the only one who can help in a certain situation and you refuse with no hard reason, there will be consequences, so choose your battles. Anyways," he continued, folding his arms to his chest this time, "our group is one of the exceptions because they fear us. We're in an odd position, where they suspect us of having strong loyalty to dissenting opinions but have no proof, but fear pissing us off because we're strong enough to be a threat, so they want to keep a little distance from us. As long as we-"

Jaune sneezed particularly loudly, hiccuping before he finished, choked, then burped the excess air he swallowed. "Dammit Jaune" was whispered amongst the youngsters.

Qrow sighed. "As long as we remain helpful in some form, they'll pretend nothing is up. As it is, they're offering training as you well know."

"What are we going to be doing?" asked Ash, the final member of ORCA, a girl who bothered the older students by her uncanny resemblance to Ruby, what with a large sniper rifle scythe, black and white Lolita clothes, and hyperactive nature.

"Scouting, hunting Grimm, and the occasional attack on the White Fang. Which reminds me..." reaching into a chest pocket, Qrow extruded his drink, taking large swigs from it. Making his way towards the tent flaps to leave, he informed them "for strategic purposes, no shocker, they 'asked'" he made air quotes with his fingers, "that we have a military designation. Actually, as demands go this one is more than reasonable, so we are Ranger Company, and I'm head officer, remember that." Once gone, the newly formed Ranger Company looked to each other, unsure of what they were supposed to do now, nervous about what was to come. Then Qrow returned, "I forgot to tell you guys, if you guys want to accept the auxiliary training Glynda setup, they want you to go now." He walked back out.

"Welp, I'm off!" Yang jumped up and out the flap door. 

Ben's finger pointed weakly at the exit, asking simply "why is she so excited?"

"They're offering to train her as a pilot" Jaune answered in between sneezes. He and his teammates followed Yang out of the tent.

Loraine the white haired knight of BLNK jogged after them, curious to their destinations. "So what'd you guys choose?" Her plate armor jangled and chinked as they walked along.

Jaune pulled out a fold out map, noting at what point he would have to eventually turn to reach where he had to go. "I'm taking up cavalry training."

"Nice dude! Me too!" the third year cheered, giving him a high five. As he met her outreached hand with his own, he could spot some scarring along her shoulder peeking out thanks to her shifting rusted armor. As a hyperhemic, a birth defect, her Aura did not protect her like a shield but instead healed her at extraordinary rates, just not perfectly; as such, Loraine has extreme scarring and can't feel half her body. She is also the only person most anyone knows who sacrifices vision to wear a heavy helmet.

"Yeah, I didn't know horses were still used by anyone, but apparently they can be really good. Plus being in cavalry comes with optional archery and spear training, so, yeah, I'm in. Oh, and walking sucks" he lightly chuckled.

"Nice, what about you mister quiet?" she asked referring to Ren.

The pink eyed boy was caught off guard by the question, mostly just by virtue of receiving attention. "Oh, uhm, uh, computer programming." The one teaching the class was the one whom supplied Ren with his hacking equipment during the masquerade ruse, graduate Lancer's partner, Hawk Lector.

A shrug. Ren raised a hurt brow. "What about you crazy chick?"

No one was surprised to see Nora skipping. "Heavy ordinance! Smashing things and blowing things up is like hot chocolate and whip cream, or pancakes and syrup, they're meant to go together!" she laughed, arms flailing about.

A shiver ran down all three of their backs, leading Jaune to say "the thought of you having more destructive power is a unsettling- hey, isn't that Ruby?" Across the yard, amongst a walking handful of men who gave the impression of experience, he spotted a very distinct eyepatch. Attached to the eyepatch was black hair with red highlights, pulled back into a high ponytail that reached her shoulders, and wild bangs that fell on either side of her face. Underneath the hair was pale skin, thin cheeks, and heavy set bags underneath the one good eye. She wore the Vale military standard apparel too, a form fitting black tank top, silver dog tags, and grey baggy cargo pants with boots. Nora noticed her too, and together they called out "Ruby" to see if she would respond. If it was Ruby, she had a completely alien vibe to her.

They knew they were loud enough for anyone in that direction to hear them but the girl didn't react. "Maybe it wasn't Ruby?" Nora offered with more uncertainty than Jaune had seen in a long while.

"I don't know, maybe she was ignoring us more like. I don't know" he repeated solemnly, eyes drifting to the ground. "Maybe it wasn't her."

The rusted knight scratched her nonexistent beard. "Oh yeah, by the way, where's ice queen? I thought she was coming with us..."

The male knight faked a surprised look. "Oh, didn't you know? She went to powder her nose, she'll be back soon."

A laugh was shared. "Oh, obviously" Loraine jested, smacking her own forehead, "I must've missed the memo."

"Ha, no, she uh, was flown to Atlas yesterday right after our meeting, something about her father. She said she'd be back." The map showed that a left turn at where they were would lead Jaune and Loraine straight to the horse stables."Anyways, we'll see you later Ren n' Nora, here's the map. I'ma rode uh hoarse." His butchered english impersonation garnered a laugh from the ginger.  
The horse stables, more akin to a shabby pen, rested on the edge of the firebase, and a head of yellow hair belonging to one of the people tending the horses turned and stared straight at the huntsmen. "Wait a second" Jaune mumbled a second before his un-worded question was answered.

"Little brother! What're you doing here?" asked a woman's voice, scratchy like Jaune's.

At first dismayed, then relieved by the familiar face, he waved to the girl, shouting to her "hey Enora! I signed up for cavalry training."

"Wow! Jaune, I haven't seen you ages." Jaune bit his lip. He knew that she was going to talk his ear off and fill him in on everything that had happened since he left. Question was, was he going like what he heard?

Sun dropped to his knees onto the hard barren dirt, sweat dripping from every pore, and dropped the leash to the sled that carried a still healing Blake. Chest heaving for breath, Sun spoke in his exhaustion, "hey Blake... I spy... with my little eye... something... tan..."

From underneath her protective linen that protected her from the sun, a tired voice answered "dirt."

His head swiveled in both directions, rolling hills of dry dirt behind him, dirt to the left of him, dirt to the right of him, and dirt with scattered red rock formations miles out in front of him. This was the start of the desert that lead to Vacuo. "Yeah, that's a good guess, a good guess" he nodded his head weakly.

Sun was more than delighted to discover hidden villages in the forest and plains all along the railroads from Vale to Vacuo. At the first one he found, they made a much better cast for Blake's broken leg, and gave her medicine to prevent a fever. After that, they drove the two of them to the next village down the line, where then they were briefly fed and and given a ride to the next village. The farther away from Vale they got, the more people wanted to help them regardless of them being faunus. After a week of that, Sun and Blake reached the last town before the desert, where they were warned to stay a good distance away from the railroad to avoid being spotted, and given a compass and bearing to follow for the next town, but no vehicle. Sun was no longer delighted. Sun came to the conclusion that five minutes of dragging Blake felt like an eternity, and would just have to deal. Most of a day later of mindless walking in progressively hot and dry terrain pushed his patience for boredom to the edge.

Done with his little rest, he stood back up to continue marching. A glance upwards to the sky where there wasn't a cloud to be seen disheartened him. "You know... sometimes... I like it when the sky is splotchy... because then you can like... see the shapes... but not the shapes of the clouds... but where there's no clouds in comparison to the clouds..." Sun confused himself.

A pause. "You mean seeing the blue in between as the primary shapes instead of the clouds?" she asked.

"Yeah" Sun confirmed. 

"You worded that really weirdly, but I get exactly what you mean."

"Yeah well... I once knew this kid in my class right? Well... he was telling me about how... how deep he was, about how he saw the blue in between... like as if he was seeing something hidden, something deep... and everyone else were shallow sheep right? This asshole... I mean... just because I eat my chicken nuggets inside out doesn't make me... make me special, it just means I have preference to the skin over the meat... pretentious asshat..." On and on Sun ranted, perpetually interrupted by the necessity to breathe. Blake listened no matter how mundane or queer his topic veered.

Occasionally the wounded girl opened her eyes and looked around, every instance bearing the same results of nothing. Nothing except for the last time of course.

Still diligently dragging the sled, Sun's head drooped low as he watched the dust kick up underneath his feet. "...and she asked me, 'what's 6 minus 2?'... I told her... '5:58'... she didn't think it was funny..."

"Sun? What's 1 minus 60?" Blake asked.

"Negative 59— oh wait, 12 o'clock, why?"

"Look at your 12."

Sun had just pulled them over a slight rise in elevation, giving them a local vantage point that revealed a town half a mile away from them. Rising his head to the sight of a true resting point restored his sanity and coherency to him, and a well needed burst of energy. "Ha ha ha! Just another ten minutes and I'm ready to sleep!"

As it was, the sun was kissing the horizon by the time they reached the busy little town. Before he could pull them completely though, a faunus woman with antlers met them just on the edge armed with a basic curved sword, sheathed thankfully. "Hey there stranger," greeted the woman, genuinely friendly, but as she looked behind Sun, she added "strangers," noting Blake.

The monkey boy coughed, then replied "howdy." He ran his hand across his face, a smear of wet dirt coloring his forehead and nose.

"You here to recruit into the White Fang?" she asked, eyeing either Sun's weapon upon his hip or his tail.

"What? No, we're running away from Vale actually..." he answered without tact or thought. He wish he had though, as it was only now he paid attention to the rest of the town. White Fang uniforms being handed out, recruitment posters, cracked open crates of dust and weapons, and trucks. Angry that he missed the obvious, he definitely caught the detail of the woman's hand moving to rest on her weapon.

"Oh, you're from Vale are you?" Traces of doubt in her voice made Sun feel weak. He couldn't fight her or the rest of the town in his state, or for that matter, he probably couldn't take the whole town in top condition. Maybe. He needed to take back his words.

"Oh! Are we here to recruit into the— oh, I thought you meant that we were recruiting you, I'm sorry, yes, we want to join you guys," he spoke apologetically, wiping his sweaty brow again. "I've just been walking for a day now, I'm tired and weird, sorry..."

Her hand dropped from her weapon. Subtle. "Oh that's alright, it's understandable. Here, follow me, we'll set you up." She turned to head back, not waiting for Sun or Blake.

Blake lifted her head, and almost growling queried "what just happened?" Her mate broke into a silent but hysterical laughter which had an unnerving effect on her. "Sun?"

"I'm sorry, it just looks like you're going to be joining the White Fang again Blake, fun!"

This time, she did growl. "Sun!"

Something was wrong. Weiss only needed to feel her sister's first strike to know Winter had to have been sick to be so weak. Fighting in the cold cathedral like hallway, maneuvering in clothes made too tight for her, the younger heiress crossed her rapier to her right, sending Winter's line of attack off past the former's shoulder, and pressed forward to smash her opponent's face with her mace like guard, and backhanded her for good measure. Stumbling backwards and vision blurred, Winter reformed her wide stance. Anticipating a Dust attack of some sort, Weiss chambered her Myrtenaster so it was on the blue shielding dust. Winter charged forward instead, whipping her saber about like tendrils of wild wind given form. For the first few strikes, Weiss blocked them only for the blade to hit her arms and waist anyways, admittedly with less force, but changed strategy by dancing backwards, just out of Winter's range, and utilized her own, longer weapon to punish her sister.  
Weiss knew for sure now that Winter was feverish. Her own stamina was always severely lacking, and her recent lung injury did not help the matter, but Winter was panting heavier than her, and was not fixing her range issue. Every time the older sister slashed or thrusted, Weiss danced inches away from the sharp tip, then returned a slap to Winter's face in her opening. Had Ruby not extended her blade, she would be able to do this, but even so, Winter seemed to be letting it happen. Though Weiss was the one being pushed back, Winter was the one who was taking slash after slash after slash.  
Growing tired, Weiss cast a quick ice dart spell, five sigils manifesting behind her and shooting out and past Winter. Falling for the basic bait, the saber user lunged forward with a potentially devastating stabbing motion. Utilizing the space between the Myrtenaster's Dust chambers and bladed guard, Weiss caught her sisters weapon like a sword going into a sheathe and wrenched the weapon from Winter's hand. Then she head butted the off balance fencer. The five ice missiles turned around in a synchronized fashion and hit Winter squarely in the back, launching her forward into Weiss, whom pulled a high kick into a backflip cartwheel, striking a pose as she watched her sister fall from the air like a defeated bird.  
Hobbling into a kneeling position, Winter shook feverishly, a small cut apparent underneath her chin where Weiss had just kicked her. Panting heavily herself, Weiss whispered "I'm sorry", then removing the saber from Myrtenaster, used the round guard to deck Winter back to the ground where she moaned in pain.

Mr. Schnee began his slow clap, though disappointment was clearly written in his features. "Well done, well done, but I don't remember you being taught to fight so... brutish like." He almost spat the last words out.

"Fuck you dad!" Weiss shouted furiously.

"And I certainly didn't teach you to talk like that!" he shouted back, just as angry.

Weiss stabbed the ground with Winter's saber, sparks spraying the ground as she continued "you bring me back here and I'm thinking maybe we could make up or something, but the first thing you have me do is fight my sister!? Who has a fever!? Who does that father? Hmm!? Also, before I forget, I don't know who you had make these clothes, but I'm not 15 anymore!" She threw her Atlesian coat to the floor, a carbon copy to Winter's except much too small for Weiss. Much to her own dismay, she found herself stripping Winter of her coat and putting her arms through the sleeves. Being a fair bit too big, Weiss would have to have it tailored eventually.

"And I didn't teach you to steal." A sigh. "I knew the common folk would be a bad influence on you." His disgust was palpable.

His daughter however turned her back on him. "I'm astounded you still have such a archaic mindset father, but I don't care. You decided I wasn't doing things your way enough and so you abandoned me, you left me to hang when I needed help the most." Her left hand traced her stomach up to where she was stabbed, fingers clenching at the fabric and faint pain still there. "I have a family who does care about me beyond me just being a pawn to extend their legacy." Two high heeled feet began to carry her off, clicks and clops echoing in her wake.

"Where are you going?" he asked sounding disinterested.

"Home. Tell Winter I'm sorry, and tell mother I said hi."

Inside one of the many nondescript tents, Ruby sat in her bra and underwear upon a fancy chair, the medical examiner of advanced years crossing off check box after check box of questions preceded by Ruby's answers. "Do you have any allergies?" he would ask, smiling to himself, Ruby would tell him "no," and he would mark it so. Every time he flipped a page, he stared off at the wall for a dozen seconds, only continuing when Ruby cleared her throat.  
Grabbing a wooden dowel from a glass jar, he motioned for her to open her mouth, flashing a mini light to search for any irregularities. With no forewarning, the man started talking, comfortable with the situation unlike Ruby. "You know, when my wife was your age, heh, we weren't married yet, but, her mouth was always red and raw because, heh heh, whenever we were in the car, she would sing at the top of her lungs, she was so into it when she did. You know the band 'Backroom Blasters'?" The girl nodded her head yes, her mouth still occupied. "Yeah, that was her favorite to belt, and I was so embarrassed when she did..." his smile widened while he removed the dowel and made foot notes on his notepad.

"Why?" Ruby asked, curious.

He chuckled. "Because, ha ha, she always had the windows open, and at intersections on busy, sunny days, ah man, the looks we got from people." He held back a laugh, but Ruby let out hers.

"Sounds like fun" she offered.

He put a cold stethoscope to her chest, Ruby shivering in turn, and he remained quiet for what Ruby assumed was a empirical minute. "Cops pulled us over once. They said we were bothering people. Hmm. They weren't wrong." Another note on his examination sheet. "I'm sure you haven't noticed, but you appear to be starving. You should eat." 

Ruby appreciated the sarcasm. "I think they wanted to keep me weak." It made sense. A prisoner can't defend themselves if they're in too much pain or don't have the energy.

The doctor crossed the tent to a sack from where he extracted a unopened roll of salami. Picking up a surgical knife, he started cutting out slices and piling them onto a paper towel. "You have some ribs that need to be realigned too. Those bruises tell me it'll just be easier to put you under when we do it. Say, have you ever tried a steamed pastrami sandwich?"

"No sir." Gracefully accepting the towel full of meat and cheese, she promptly stuffed the food into her face.

"A properly made pastrami sandwich is to die for, I'm not kidding you. You can't cook the meat, otherwise it's not the same, you gotta heat it up in a warmed pot of its own juices and butter. The pickles have to be right too; very vinegar-y, I don't know how many sandwiches I've had were ruined by pickles more akin to cucumbers." He stood up an eyesight chart very carefully distanced from where Ruby sat.

"I wouldn't know" her jaw worked, sound muffled by mushed food churning viciously.

"Alright, so, with both eyes, can you read the letters from the top row down?" he asked politely. The one eyed girl looked at him in confusion. He laughed. "I'm kidding. Just read the letters as far as you can go..." 

Doing as he asked, she read as many letters as she could before they got too fuzzy for her to even attempt guessing. 'Ahem'ing when she was done, he put away the eyesight test chart and took position behind Ruby. His hands felt her spine and shoulders, 'tsk'ing as he went.

"I'm going to need to realign your spine. Lay on your back. So if I heard right, they're putting you in first division second squad? Is that right?" A hot pack slipped underneath her before she laid down completely.

"Yeah. Front line category." Solemn tones poured from her mouth as easily as did air.

He grabbed her right hand wrist, fingers prodding at the muscles on her arm. "So you know all about those yahoos. I would tell you that you're in good hands and what not, that they'll look after you, but..." his fingers dug in between her arm muscles, pushing and persuading the different layers of muscle to shift and break from each other, separating the viscera that locked together through bad habits and over extension. Ruby had a high pain tolerance, but even so, she had to grind her teeth and curl her toes to keep from crying out loud. "...but, I know about you. You're in the papers you know. Some people are liking the sound of 'the Red Reaper Ruby' or 'Reaper Rose', cool titles in my opinion. Anyways, I know you can handle yourself, so I'll give you a helpful warning instead; you might have to share a shower with first squad at some point, and those boys have no respect for privacy. They've been given multiple warnings, but how are you supposed to punish people whose job it is to be head strong infantry men?" Letting go of her right arm, she felt immense relief and sudden lightness in her limb, as if someone took their foot off the brakes. Sitting her up, he removed the heat pack and put his fist underneath the small of her back and pushed her back down, several of the ligaments of her spine popping back into place. Ruby started giggling uncontrollably.

"That felt amazing" she confessed, hands opening and closing as she turned her body back and forth to feel the relief.

The doctor sat down, pulling a leg up to rest his notepad against. He wrote some more notes before speaking again. "So you're short sighted."

"What?" she asked flatly.

"Your eye is dented, no doubt from your extensive history of combat, so when we put you under to fix your ribs, we'll also reshape your eye lens so you'll be back to normal. This is all covered by the military by the way, so cheers. Also, you need to eat more, though I don't imagine that will be a problem for the next few weeks at least—"

"Uhm, sir, what's wrong?" Her abrupt question caused him to do a double take. Ruby thought it couldn't have been her imagination that he was crying, and when he looked at her somewhat shocked, it only made it clearer that he was. 

Reaching to the side of his nose with a finger, he felt his skin soak up water, but did not react. "I'm sorry Ms. Rose, it's just..." he sighed. He stared at the wall again, this time for a rough minute, much longer than any response she could imagine needed. "My wife, been married 60 years, died yesterday. A heart attack." She stared at him calmly, but greatly off put by the revelation. "She's just... gone..."

It was completely random and entirely arbitrary for Ruby. She did not suspect anything like that to occur in a conversation, especially with someone who acted so oddly chipper before. Things usually made a sort of sense to her, combat, Grimm, negativity, mystery, pain, and so on, but in this circumstance, it was just a matter of someone else's personal life making an impression on her, and it had nothing to do with anything relevant to her. A natural death, a lengthy life, an astonishingly tranquil mourning husband, and regular business. Ruby couldn't even say she was sorry for him. She was, but the feeling wasn't strong enough to justify the words being spoken. Apparently, the doctor would rather move things along as well.

"Anyways, with a large pool of organ donors as of late, we're also going to do an eye transplant for you during the surgery tomorrow, so cheers."

"What?"

-End Chapter 1-


	2. Picture Eye Ideas

"Okay, Jaune, I don't know what it is you're doing wrong, but you're doing it wrong," stated Enora, the eldest sister to Jaune, and coincidentally the caretaker for Firebase Alma's horses.

The knight persisted in trying to pet the frenzied black horse, earning himself a powerful kick to the chest for his efforts. A wooden post in the ground meant for tying the horses to stopped his low altitude flight. He coughed in a panic, the wind knocked out of him once again, but once his breath was back told his sister, "I don't think he likes me either..."

With a pat to his shoulder, she tried to console him, saying, "come on Jaune, seventh horse the charm. Here, try... that one." She pointed a long finger to a mid size brown bronco about 6 feet tall at the shoulders, a pretty horse, one with a white stripe down its nose and white freckles. Oddly, there were random white highlights in it's mane too.

Jaune stood up, hand to his pained chest, and maneuvered his way around the horse enclosure to the one his sister suggested. At the sight of the creature, Jaune remembered the white horse that appeared many times in his dreams, surprised he just remembered bits of his dreams now when he could never remember them when he woke up. Though completely different, the chestnut horse appeased to something in Jaune's being, drawing him to want it. Upon nearing it, its black eyes locked onto him, and unlike the others, didn't immediately get uncomfortable. Slowing his approach, he lifted his hand to head height, hoping to imprint himself on the creature, the horse still patient. "Steady girl, don't you worry, I'm just going to pet ya..." At the last inch, the horse leaned its head in so Jaune's hand ran against its brow.

"And there you go," Enora sighed in relief. "First let it get comfortable with you, then we'll see if you can mount it."

Getting quite familiar with the features on its face through petting, Jaune turned his head to the woman. "So... you sure this one's not claimed? I'll be... what exactly, I'm not clear on the chain of events here," he confessed, head shaking honestly.

"None of the horse's in here without saddles are claimed," Enora stepped in with saddle in hand and threw it on the chestnut horse's back, strapping it on while continuing, "these horses have had some basic breaking in, but are still fairly wild. Since this one seems to be fine with you, as we train you, you will have to train it just the same, that way in combat you guys will be in sync." With amazing speed and finesse, the horse was saddled before Jaune's very eyes and ready to ride. "There you go little brother, see if you can get on."

Jaune put his left foot through the stepping ring and heaved his other leg over the back of the animal, shifting his weight slightly so he was balanced upon its back. Enora gave him a mildly impressed look. He said, "wow, a year and a half of Huntsmen training and I can sit straight, who knew?" She rolled her eyes. "Wait, so I know horses have different purposes and what not, what's this breed like?"

Taking the straps, she lead the horse out towards where the fence gate pointed to the wilderness away from the Firebase. "Well this is a wild mutt breed with its Aura unlocked, so it's pretty rounded. With some conditioning, it should be able to carry two fully equipped people based on its medium size, but it should be able to run at a decent speed because it's not too big, and it should have credible stamina judging by how hard it was to catch in the first place. It's still young, so it's got room to improve." She stopped just outside of the fence gate, handing the reins to Jaune.

"So what now, you want me to-" 

"You got to ride it bit. But Jaune, make sure you come back this time," she smiled mischievously.

Jaune rolled his eyes. "Yeah I get it, I should've called or visited, but let's focus; I don't know how to ride, how am I supposed to-"

Enora slapped the rear of the chestnut bronco, sending it on a fast pace beeline into the surrounding forest after a quick bray, Jaune almost flying out of the seat. At first shocked, the knight began to laugh. Not two weeks ago, he was racing a motorcycle through traffic on a rainy day, crashing in the process. He was going much slower now in comparison, and the vehicle was steering itself for the most part, he just needed to lead it. The laughs came from his confidence in getting a handle on the situation, how the rainy streets of Vale didn't slow him down much even after grounding him, but his laughs stopped when the events that followed soon after flashed in his mind, hundreds of bodies lined in rows on the asphalt, a sobering reminder to why he was even there in the first place. He needed to fight, and to fight he needed to expand his skill set.

It was time to get down to business, and to tame this horse.

Leaning forward, Jaune felt the movements of the beast, its leans and turns as it bobbed through the trees, the way it bucked with every kick forward, and its wet, heavy breaths in time with its thumping sides. Moist air rushed past him and low branches scraped the top of his head. The horse wanted to run, Jaune just needed to figure out how to steer him. Praying not to mess up and crash headlong into a tree, the boy pulled on the left rein and shifted his weight to the left, the horse having no option but to follow where his head pulled him. The horse slowed momentarily from its turn, but picked up the pace once more. Jaune shifted his weight to the right this time, but if the horse noticed it, he didn't show it.

"So seating doesn't really matter then?" Jaune puffed, "huh..."

Breaking out into a clearing, Jaune pulled the reigns to the right, forcing them to trace a circle slower and slower till the energetic beast stood still. It neighed at him, rearing to go as it slapped the ground with a hoof. The knight pulled left and right on the leash, feeling out how much tension garnered a reaction, struggling slightly as the back and forth almost made him fall from his seat.

"I think I got this!" he laughed, the horse returning a neigh in response. "Oh? You think I don't, well let's see about that..." He whipped the reins, lightly slapping the horse's mane more than anything, and kicked its sides while shouting, "go!" The horse took off, though he wasn't sure which part got the horse going.

Under Jaune's control this time, the chestnut horse raced through the blue and green woods back towards the firebase. With this newfound success, the boy gave a hearty smile. Enora pushed herself from the post she was leaning against at the sound of pounding hoof steps getting closer. Sure enough, she spotted Jaune and the horse rushing right towards her and the horse enclosure. She then noticed the panicked face on her brother, and she knew right away that he didn't know how to stop the horse. Taking a quick jog to the side, she hesitantly watched as the horse steered right at the fence, jumped, and fortunately cleared, though Jaune floated just enough at the peak of the jump and landed separately from the horse, bouncing with a painful sounding thump and rolling along the ground. Biting her lip to keep from laughing, she approached a groaning Jaune and asked through a strained voice, "have you thought up a name for him yet?"

"Ughhhhh..." he moaned, his body contorted so he rested on his shoulders and his legs hung over his head. "I was thinking... something affectionate... like Shithead, Roach, or maybe something classy like Asshole." His body untangled and sprawled out.

She rolled her eyes with a sharp sigh. "Oh come on Jaune, don't be so bitter."

His head rolled to the side, his eyes cast upon the firebase. "Ugh... well, I guess someone's gotta be having a worst time than me."

Inside the firebase somewhere, power lines from portable generators ran into a large white tent where Ruby rested atop a sterile steel table. The anesthetics finally kicked in, her eye flickering weakly and pointlessly, the cull of deep sleep drawing her in. Her head rolled to the side, though they would prop it up soon.

"Remember Ms. Rose, once you wake up, you won't be able to see because of your bandages, and you can't take them off till we say you can, okay?" The head surgeon coaxed her. She gently nodded in acknowledgement, remembering that detail among the others that they threw at her without worry if she understood or not. "Okay, she's falling out," the surgeon commented to his partner and two nurses.

"Give it a minute before we start," reminded the other doctor.

A sigh. "I saw that they never put her on a waiting list for eye transplants after she lost it. I mean, eye donors would've been hard to come by until just last week, but still, they didn't even bother." The surgeon spoke with genuine yet mild curiosity.

"They didn't?" asked the other doctor. "Odd. That headmaster usually likes to look after his charges. Poor girl. How'd she lose it?"

He cleared his throat as he straightened out his back, answering, "she lost it on a mission. A criminal that sided with the White Fang or something gouged it out."

The other doctor raised a brow. "That's macabre. What was his name?"

"Roman Torchwick!" greeted the female White Fang recruiter, "I was told you would be coming. What are the orders from Adam?"

"We're here to figure that out." The white clad man with hair like fire in the sun walked past the woman without breaking his stride, Neo, Perry, and the wolf faunus close behind. Behind them was a terrifying figure. A man presumably of six and half feet tall, dressed in ragged black cloth layered in falcon feathers with a matching falcon skull mask that had red markings like a Grimm that combined with his black plumage hid any skin he might show, his red eyes behind the thin slits being the only visible flesh. Slung over his shoulder was a breach lock rifle with a hammered hexagonal barrel and a long stained bayonet. "We need to look at your maps, also, get your radio set up."

The woman whistled. "Wow, who's your tall friend here, he looks like he could handle himself."

"My babysitter, come on, let's go—" Roman's foot skidded to a stop, head turned. To his side were two Faunus, one with cat ears, one with a monkey tail waving behind them. "Wait. Do I know you?" The one with cat ears who leaned on a crutch, her leg wrapped up and bandaged, nodded her head 'no', while the monkey answered the same in a strangely forced voice. "Right..." Roman retorted without conviction, staring at them. "Blasted heat!" he growled in frustration, stripping his white coat off for the countless time, leaving him topless, and threw it to the monkey Faunus. "Get me something more appropriate to wear... and a drink! I'll be with miss recruiter here when you need to find me."

Taking their leave, Blake and Sun looked over their shoulders as they walked through the outpost, Roman returning a burning gaze, and bobbed out of sight of the thief and into an alley between two of the ramshackle wooden houses long abandoned by the original owners. Blake was the first to lift her mask, grabbing Sun by the collar and growling in his face, "that was Roman!"

"I noticed!" he snapped back.

"He's the one who hurt Ruby! Now's my chance to kill him" she whispered, looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was listening in.

"Before you go off and break your other leg, didn't you see the other guy though?" Sun said as he gripped her throttling hand.

"The tall dark one, he..." Blake paused to think, though Sun didn't wait.

"During the siege on the big White Fang base, there were six people left to hold us back at the end while the rank and file fled. He was one of them! Even if you were in top shape, I don't think we could take him on alone, and that's forgetting everyone else here!" Sun too looked around. "I know you want to make Roman pay, but we're just not in the position to do that."

"What are we supposed to do then?" Blake asked impatiently. "Run?"

Sun stepped back, rubbing his chin as he thought. "No, they would chase us, and well..." he looked to her crutch. "Wait. Ugh... I hate the idea, but..."

"I think I know what you're going to say" she exhaled, clearly as uncomfortable as Sun, "we could stick around."

He shrugged. "It's kinda the obvious choice, isn't it?"

"It's our only option, but it's by no means a bad one. Listen, what are we supposed to do? The Kingdoms are all going to war over something the White Fang did, a lot of people are going to die because of their manipulation—"

Sun's face grew dark. "Blake, you didn't see the rows of bodies."

"Sun?" In a rare moment, Blake showed concern.

"A lot of people have already died. You didn't see the short bodies bags Blake."

"Sun..." A free hand reached to his face, her thumb brushing the cheek beneath the bags under his eyes, her middle finger tickling his ear too. It was clear he was holding back tears tied to a sight he never needed to see. "I'm sorry. Listen, let's think this through." She looked around again. "I'm thinking it's a slim shot, but if we stick around, we could do good here. We can't return to Vale until their declaration of War is declared void, and getting to Mistral is going to be tricky if we want to do that, and, well, leaving unnoticed might prove difficult. Maybe, just maybe, the two of us could sabotage the White Fang's efforts or learn about their plans, then maybe send messages to Ruby back home or something similar. What do you think?"

Coughs broke his locked throat. "There's only so much two people can do to affect a world wide war, but I guess it's worth a shot."

A sigh, "we have to try some—" Blake let out a pitiful whimper as she hunched forward, a tear welling up in her eye.

Sun grabbed her by the shoulders, asking, "what is it?" in worry.

"Just twisted my leg in the wrong way" she answered in a pained voice.

"Come on, we'll talk about this later, but I think... you're right," he tucked Roman's coat under his left arm and helped stabilize Blake with his right arm, "we could do good here, it'll just be fantastically dangerous." They started walking towards the quote unquote 'main street' of the outpost, as hiding for so long would cause more suspicion than they needed.

"Dangerous? Sun, that's our whole life right there."

"Except this time we're outnumbered and have nowhere to run." Out of the alley way, Sun threw Roman's coat to the first White Fang member he saw, stating kindly, "the owner needs something lighter, he's with the recruiter lady. Also they all need something to drink."

"Bro, why me?" the Faunus said back in an annoyed tone.

Sun gestured with his head to Blake, saying, "I need to change her bandages man, could you do this for me?"

"Ugh," he sighed, "fine, whatever."

"I think we just dodged a bullet" Blake whispered as they continued on, "I think Roman might remember us."

Sun grinned. "But Blake, Roman doesn't use bullets, he uses baby mortars and a cane..." As he hoped to get, Blake gave him her signature angry look, a sure sign she was okay.

Off in the dusk lit woods of Vale, Raven sat in an encompassing throne made of roots at the base of a great leafless tree, peach in hand. She removed her bony helmet, laying at her feet as she took the first bite of the fuzzy fruit. Being mid Winter, the woods had no birds to chirp, but cold winds that carried dead leaves along the forest floor. Taking her first bite, Raven removed her glove, examining her pale skin while she chewed quietly.   
Pale skin was an understatement, and gave false implications.  
While the skin was smooth, it was almost gray, too white and too little red to be the color of a living human. It had shades of blue like a corpse. She took another bite of the peach.

She put the glove back on.

Her free hand touched at her neck, two fingers and a thumb pulling the black bead necklace into her sight. Two red eyes looked into the pearly black spheres and she saw her reflection in every one, two red eyes looking back at her. Another bite of the peach.

She let go of the necklace.

Rolling her hip, Raven lifted up her gatling blade sheath to her lap, rolling the assembly on its bearing to check the blades. One blade in particular was almost entirely steal silver, the fire dust imbued in it used up. Withdrawing the blade and withdrawing a squeeze tube from one of her several back pouches, the peach being held by her teeth, she squeezed a fire dust and penetrating oil mix into a port on her gatling sheathe that corresponded to that blade. Retracting the blade, she ran it up and down a few times, red color returning in splotches starting at the edge of the blade and working its way in. Satisfied with the recharge, she took another bite and checked again. A blade with lightning effects was well faded, but she was empty on that dust kind in her pouches. She would just have to manage without it. Another bite.

Raven stood up slowly. She contemplated the half eaten peach longingly. She just wasn't hungry anymore after those few bites. Fruit still in hand, the bony helmet found its way back onto her head, and she resumed her walk. 

She didn't make it very far.

A raggedy black figure with an elaborate Ursa mask and curved great axe in one hand stood silently forty feet to her left. Raven's heart pounded in her chest, more so than it had in awhile and it hurt greatly for it. After a deep grunt, she attached her grip to a blade in her sheathe, but didn't draw.

"My answer hasn't changed" she called to him. Her stance grew wide and low, ready to attack.

The black and broad shouldered figure broke into a sprint, cloth and fur flowing behind him. Raven remained still, even as the man got dangerously closer. Once he got within fifteen feet, he jumped in a twisted fashion as he swung his axe, corkscrewing one full revolution with his body diagonal to the ground, whole tree branches caught by the axe split like toothpicks, bringing the axe down to meet Raven's skull.

"I refuse!" she screamed furiously, drawing a blood red blade that met with the wicked great axe, the thin blade stopping it dead with a clang as if momentum had no place in the equation, the dark foe hovering in place. Literally never halting the movement of her hand, as soon as the glowing blade met the axe, she sheathed the blade and instantly drew a white blade, slashing at the body that gravity had just begun to effect. Severe wind engulfed the area as an invisible concussive force slammed against the man, launching him back skyward.

Raven followed him up, drawing a standard dust blade as she repelled off tree to tree to strike again. This time, as he swung mid air at her and she blocked, the axe smashed through the blade and the broken half whizzed past Raven's head. Both bodies colliding, the redder of the combatants kicked of the other, the dark foe falling back to the ground while Raven grabbed ahold of a tree limb. The man adjusted himself and landed on his feet, Ursa mask locked onto the other Grimm Mask.   
Letting go of the tree branch, Raven flipped her orientation to fall head first. With a button press, the rest of the broken blade fell away, and the handle went back to the sheathe, ready to draw, and so the man at the bottom readied himself to strike with an upward swing. At the perfect range, both fighters started their motion.  
Raven drew, the dark foe swung.

A red and black portal opened from Raven's blade that she fell into, and the man's axe caught warped air then cut dully into dry ground.

Silence returned to the woods as the ragged figure stood staring forward, unmoving.

-End Chapter 2-


	3. Cut From Different Cloths

In the afternoon sun of Firebase Alma, Weiss had no trouble getting directions to the Ranger Company tent, or rather the Beacon bunch tent as Weiss liked to think of it based off what Yang told her about it over the scroll. Ignoring the curious looks of the young men as she walked all the way to the other side of the base where their residence was located, bitter sentiments over the needless distance brewed in the heiress. Beacon Academy may have had larger distances between residential areas and classrooms, but for Weiss it was the principle that mattered more; in Beacon, everyone had to walk a lot, but in this base, she gathered that her group would have to walk much more on average than anyone else. This fact pissed her off, and Weiss had only been on the base for five minutes.

"...Yeah, he was being a little bitch about it," Weiss heard and saw Russel say as she walked into the big tent that was her new home, Russel on the opposite side she entered. "S'like dude, things are going to hell and you're whining about that" he explained, emphasizing 'that', whatever 'that' may be. He sat on a crate next to Cardin, and was running a snake bore through his gun when he looked over and saw the heiress. "Hey, it's Weiss..."

"Oh it's you," Weiss greeted in a unexcited monotone. Cardin's group may have stopped bullying Faunus because of Ruby's group, but it didn't mean Weiss had to be friends with them, a concept she embraced wholeheartedly.

"Wow, cold. Ice queen." Russel and Cardin went back to their weapons, not interested in a fight.

Weiss's head popped to her left at the sound of Yang's voice, "Weiss? Weiss! Come in here!"

The brawler's voice came from the first 'room' on the left on Weiss's side, the two flaps overlapping just enough to block all observations from the outside. The white haired fighter halted at the doorstep, her finger slipping underneath the canvas fold, thought for a moment, then asked, "are you decent?"

"Yeah, come on, come in!"

Taking the offer, the duelist walked through the threshold, seeing the two sets of bunk hammocks, a rug, three chests, her own luggage underneath a bottom bunk, and Yang, whom was above what Weiss presumed was her own bunk, with a thick book on her lap. "I haven't seen you in a couple days." Weiss dropped the bundle of clothing in her arms onto her bunk and unstrapped her sword, then pulled out her two luggage cases.

"Don't worry, you haven't missed anything really. How'd the visit go—" as Yang shifted her body towards Weiss, a note pad fell out of her book, past the other girl's face, and landed at her feet. "Oops, gravity's on. Wanna grab that?"

"Sure, here..." reaching down, she studied the rudimentary sketch of a twin jet craft and all the little notes and descriptions and axises and arrows surrounding it, handing it back to Yang when she was done. "Is that apart of your pilot training you messaged me about?"

Yang flashed the cover of her heavy book, something about take off procedures and aeronautical basics it said. "Yep. Thank you," she grabbed the pad, "so what about the trip? How was your mom and dad?"

Weiss sighed. "Let's just say that if my father had his way, I'd be a good little robot with a control panel he could access from anywhere in the world. Hey, could you look away for a minute?" The duelist slid off her jacket and threw some clothing to the hammock on the other side of the room.

"Sorry," Yang said in response to both Weiss changing and Weiss's family problem. She pretended to turn over to look away, but the moment her partner turned away too, Yang looked back to watch, feeling mischievous as usual.

The white dress fell to the floor, leaving Weiss in only panties, as she didn't need to wear a bra and so chose not to. Yang felt the sudden regret due to her rebellious nature, as the scars on her partner's back pained her to see. "I didn't stay long enough to see my—" she coughed, "I didn't see my mom. I did see Winter though. Strange thing, Winter was sick, if you could believe it."

"Well I don't know her at all, so I couldn't say," Yang commented lowly, still watching Weiss.

"It's not normal, I'll tell you that." The petite girl put on a dark blue and gray dress, the lower part running a few inches below her knees and hugged to her legs in two separate pieces with a right bias to allow leg movement, then reached behind her neck to pull out her hair from underneath the top part of the dress. "My dad had me fight her too, and I'm still asking why. Winter hasn't messaged an answer back, but... eh, it's all weird." Weiss lifted the brushed silver armor corset that Ruby made for her up to her chest, sliding her arms through the arm straps and buckling the lower strap on her lower back, both of which held the back plates in place and both of those tied together with string, true to a corset. "You know this is basically the first time I've worn this, and I'm surprised how well it fits." The corset was light in weight, soft and smooth to the touch, and conformed perfectly to her chest. The lowest part covered her belly button, then the shaped pieces that linked together and looked like irregular scales on a lizard ended just above her breasts. It helped that Weiss had no breast to speak of. "I don't know how Ruby does it but... wait, is there still no word on Ruby?"

"No." The worry in her voice was unmistakable. Weiss ignored the tone.

"I think I'll go asking around about her, maybe I'll find something." She lifted the jacket and vest she took from her sister, the coat cut down to a flak jacket, and assembled the clothing upon her body. The vest hid the corset completely, and because of how naturally skinny she was, no one would've guessed there was armor underneath at all. "You can look now."

"Ooh, so pretty" Yang sincerely remarked, having already had the chance to look at it. "So elegant. Though I don't know how a dress will fare on a battlefield."

Weiss slipped on her heels, scoffing. "Yang, please. I..." She inspected herself for the first real time, lost as to what to say. She came to the conclusion that it wasn't the best idea, but was going to do it anyways. "I'll think about it when it becomes a problem." Stepping halfway through the threshold to leave, Weiss stopped to itch the bridge of her nose, turning to ask Yang, "what's the situation on food here?"

"Hungry?" Yang guessed, relatively surprised.

"No." A lie.

Yang laughed to herself. "They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We have a couple hours, so if you wanna snack, there's rations right in the center of the tent."

"Rations?" Weiss asked, head cocked and worried.

"Parmesan cheese, hardtack crackers, salami, and chocolate bars. Nora told me it ain't bad."

"Hmm." After a moment of travel, Weiss was standing in the middle of the tent and spinning a small, black, plastic crate around to open it correctly. Inside she found exactly what Yang told her would be there. Foot long lengths of packaged salami, square cuts of wax wrapped cheese and rectangles of crackers, then finally flat yet strangely thick bricks of tin wrapped chocolate. She read the label, then spoke to Russel and Cardin but did not look in their direction, "these were made 50 years ago." They looked to each other and shrugged, their attention immediately being pulled to the sound of hoof steps outside the tent, Jaune entering in the same place Weiss had a few minutes ago. 

He started with a simple "hey Weiss" to greet the newcomer, then walked with a spring in his step across the left side of the tent, peeking his head into each quote unquote 'room' as to look for something. Not finding it after a couple seconds of searching, he put himself next to Weiss so he could grab a half eaten block of cheese he had left out earlier, cordially asking, "have you seen where Pyrrha is?"

Weiss glanced with a raised brow at Jaune, then to Russel and Cardin who both returned muddled faces. Settling on Jaune, Weiss flatly stated while flicking her chocolate around, "Not in Vale? I don't get the question..."

"Oh, right, I forgot..." he smiled as he looked down. The knight walked one way for a moment very slowly, then turned back to where he came from. He winded up his body and kicked one of the ration crates, livid with anger. Russel and Cardin jumped where they sat, eyes wide and everyone watched the blond boy make his way out of the tent.

Weiss just itched the bridge of her nose again, and took a bite out of the thick chocolate bar, a snapping sound similar to breaking rocks accompanying her bite. She chewed for a moment, then looked at Russel and Cardin who waited for her reaction. "It tastes mildly better than a potato" she said, once more in a flat and bored tone. She spat out the small chunk which hit the ground like a bullet, dropped the chocolate carelessly onto one of the lower crates, then walked out too.

Across the sea, an hour left till sunset, Cinder found herself knocking on a cheap apartment door to a cheap apartment building with her two close followers standing right beside her. The one to open the door was Scarlet, not the member of team SSSN, but the mouse faunus who went undercover at Beacon with her estranged team mates, Scarlet Mally. Her ear was unsurprisingly still missing, courtesy of Ruby, who also was the one responsible for blowing off Scarlet's friend's left arm, Alice, with the same shot. More than a handful of people in the higher echelons of the White Fang were quite familiar with Ruby Rose's extensive record of dismemberment and gore, even if the rate of events were mostly infrequent.

Scarlet wiped drunk sleep from her bloodshot eyes as she opened the door, yawning long and loudly. "N' the three chosen ones appear, poised to save t'day" she said in her odd way of speech, almost always as though she was telling a story.

"Wow, you smell fantastic," snarked Mercury.

"All work and no dranks makes Scarlet a dull gal." The mousy girl waved them in, still rubbing her eyes. It was a small apartment, with one bathroom, two beds, and a window. By the window sat Sham, the tall black and green clad man in his slanted beret, having turned his stare from the outside to the other team of people. Alice hummed to herself as she finger painted the wall into a distorted scene of Mistral. "I got your application forms for the police station under t' bed, half filled em' out too," spoke Scarlet.

"Good" responded Cinder cooly, not impressed as the task left for them was by no measure difficult. "Now for the real effort; are you three ready for the next step?"

"Yes, we already volunteered, now we just ave' to ship off in the next tree' days. Up, off, and away," she groggily explained. Not waiting for anything, the small girl grabbed her sword that laid against the table in between the two beds, a duffle bag, and checked out of the room with a sloppy salute.

Alice spun upwards onto her feet, jumping high off the bed and ducking her head so to not hit the low ceiling, and grabbed her flamberge style blade on the way out the door, humming all the while. The last one, Sham, picked up a brown guitar case and sauntered to the hallway, mumbling as he passed Cinder, "tell them we're off and on the next phase."

"Why can't you do it?" bit back Emerald.

He scowled at her, answering "we wiped our scrolls of all information, and I don't memorize numbers." The door slammed behind him.

A minute passed where the three of them watched the door, then finally, Emerald moan. "They are so weird! I mean they take it to a whole new level."

Cinder strolled to the first bed, lifting up the mattress in search of the papers but found nothing. "I would love to say something conflicting to piss you off... but I actually agree too much to spite you" Mercury remarked. Cinder lifted the second mattress and snatched the papers she found. "You find them? Say, what jobs are we applying for?" he asked, smugly curious.

Sifting through the information briefly, the older woman obliged her underling's question with a smile. "Me and Emerald are going to be janitors for the Mistral's Central Police Department."

"And what about me?" he laughed, picturing Cinder in gray-blue duds.

"Hot dog stand boy."

"What?" Mercury sounded angry.

"Remember, service with a smile" Cinder grinned with a mean pleasure.

His frown turned into a smile. "Just kidding. You think I would be mad, but this just means I get free food. Besides," Mercury leaned back into a fall, one of the beds creaking loudly underneath his sudden weight, "I'm not too interested in playing hide and seek right now. I'll sell my hotdogs all day long, you guys can look for the Maidens without me."

The leader looked out the window, sighing with tired anticipation, elated at the change of scenery, and the change of pace. "We're not looking for the Maidens just yet. You know the plan, we're looking for the person who will find the Maidens for us."

As the sun cast it's gold ocean shore glow over Mistral, shadows creeping upwards in lower places, Cinder and Headmaster Yelette, though in different places with different scenery and different goals, looked at the lowering sun all in the same way, waiting. The Headmaster, sitting at her now cluttered desk inside the dynamically lit office with it's windows open for the gentle breeze to tug at one's hairs, found respite in how a physically serene space could combat the emotional chaos a person felt, a person namely being her. Could being the key word. Though somewhat calmed by the picturesque qualities of her home, her fingers still tapped at her desk top impatiently, bouncing from rhythmic patterns to erratic messes and back again. The fingers stopped abruptly at the ding of the elevator notifying her that company was arriving.

Rising to her feet, Yelette faced the door with her typical bored yet slightly annoyed expression, waiting for the elevator to bring in the people. The clock tick tock away, the woman staring at the seconds hand. Her foot tapped the floor progressively faster. After thirty seconds, the elevator arrived and opened, and her slightly annoyed face had turned into a frown. "Was I not clear about the time? 'Meet me after lunch' I'm sure I said, and here we are, sunset..."

Walking into the office slowly as if it were a lion's den, the four teenagers shuffled into a row in front of the woman's desk. "Sorry Headmaster," Scarlet spoke regrettably, nodding his head lower but looked straight at her nonetheless, "but a lot of the other students were asking us questions about Vale and everything that happened..."

"...And we lost track of the time," finished Sage.

Yelette began laughing, enough so she felt it necessary to cover her mouth with a hand, then using the other pointed at Sage, saying, "okay, first: Sage, button up your shirt," she commanded, referring to his bare chest. "Second: 'The other students'? Do you think you're going to continue studying and schooling after everything that happened?" She sniffled, her body relaxing into a more somber posture at a jarring speed.

"We were afraid of you bringing that up," Neptune confessed solemnly.

Yelette's head turned slightly upwards, and her voice deepened. "Afraid of what exactly?" She knew the answer, but alas, wanted to hear from their mouths.

"War," Neptune choked, fidgeting with his hands. "We're not stupid Yelette. We know you expect us to do our part for our kingdom, more time in the classroom just being pointless, but we're going to be fighting friends if that's the case. We just got home. And that's only because of extenuating circumstances. Bad circumstances."

"You're not as stupid as you could be, what you say is true." Wobbling for a moment, the Headmaster pushed away from her desk, and began walking in a circle around her office. "And while we're at it, let's not beat around the bush, you're scared of dying too I imagine. Fighting people with a cause is good way to get killed, but then again, that's what you've been doing with the people of the White Fang, is it not?"

"If I weren't scared of being called a coward, I would agree... the dying part that is," softly spoke Sage. The three boys wriggled in place restlessly, their consciouses at conflict. There had always been a great element of danger to their lives, especially during missions, but the rules of war were different, less forgiving, and had more at stake. Instead of a failed objective being a setback and a nuisance, in war, the failed objective could cost many lives, or in extreme cases, the whole war. People will fight to kill you not because you are in the way, but because you wave a different banner.

Pyrrha however, stood as still as stone, eyes locked on Yelette.

"I don't blame you boys, but after everything that's happened, yes, it would weird for you to not act now. But enough of that, what about you Ms. Nikos, you don't seem very fazed at all, nor worried. Are you ready to fight again?" Yelette, who now stood before the redhead, had to look up to Pyrrha.

"I will do what it takes to return things to the way they were, if not better." There was no falter in her stoic delivery.

A short but impressed whistle. "Wow, determined are we? We must have a boyfriend waiting for us or something. Or maybe a code of honor? Or was Vale your new home you want to return to?"

"You were right for sure the first time" Scarlet offered meekly, Sage and Neptune elbowing him from both sides.

"Well I hope he doesn't become a casualty of this ridiculous war then." The old woman returned to her desk, dragging a large and long wooden crate up next to her seat, prying it open with a readied crowbar.

Scarlet whispered to Sage, "I can't believe I didn't see the giant box until now, I kinda feel dumb now." The other three nodded in accord, too distracted by Yelette to pay attention to the room.

The old woman dead lifted a long blanket wrapped item onto her desk, the glass making a worrisome sound from the weight. "Sage, take it!" she panted.

Stepping forward, he grabbed it with one hand and stripped the blanket to reveal his sword, a small smile replacing his sad visage. "How'd you get it?"

Yelette planted an open smaller box from the crate that contained a cotton wrapped sword and pistol for Scarlet, bragging "I have people all over looking out for my interests." Another blanket unfolded for Neptune's weapon in gun form, then finally Pyrrha's sword and shield. "And that's not all folks, I have a special delivery for the first weapon in a new line of weapons with someone's name on it."

The teenagers, still grabbing and examining their weapons for any mishaps in shipping, cast curious looks to each other. New weaponry was like new toys, but not only that, if someone was gifting a weapon to you it meant that they felt you could use it well. If Yelette was giving a new weapon to one of them, a lot of thought had to have been put into it.

Retrieving it from a cubby in the walls, the woman laid out a polished mahogany box, shiny with it's varnish, the setting sunlight painted it black and gold. Unlatching the lid, the teens gawked at the red and yellow rectangle of metal, three feet long, resting in crimson velvet, unsure what they were looking at. "Go on Pyrrha," Yelette grinned, "take it. I believe you'll find it to your tastes."

Pyrrha pointed to herself, flattered and embarrassed at this unexpected gift. Taking a short breath, she reached forward with shaky hands, lifting the fairly heavy weapon from it's molded case, just now noticing the huge bullets that came with it, and ran her hands across the bumpy contraption to try and understand it. She thumbed a small switch, and the whole weapon jumped out of her hand as it folded out and shifted into a six foot long sniper rifle. "Oh."

"That's so cool!" admired Scarlet, feeling a little inadequate in comparison with his little gun.

"As far as I can tell," Pyrrha thought out loud, "it's a bolt action version of my rifle, just much bigger." It did in fact look like her own weapon in rifle form, except bigger, a proportionally longer barrel, bigger scope, and a muzzle break. She wiggled the gleaming bolt lever, working its surprisingly smooth action up and out, a un-modest, gigantic space for bullets (more like artillery rounds) to fit in one at a time. "Who made this?" she asked as she cycled the bolt to see if it caught at any moment.

"A weapon designer by the name of Gwen Rush, you might've heard of her."

"That's Lance's mom" Neptune commented, surprised to hear the name.

"Yeah, her designer symbol should be somewhere on the thing, just don't know where," she continued, waving her hand in Pyrrha's general direction.

"Wait," Pyrrha whispered, eyes darting along the length of the rather beautiful gun that fit in with her own in style. "This is supposed to be like my weapon, so..." she moved up her hand to the middle of the gun and repeated the motions she practiced for years on a smaller scale, happily surprised when the six foot long sniper rifle turned into a seven foot long spear. "It's beautiful" she whispered.

While the others eyed the weapon longingly, Yelette talked mostly to herself, explaining, "just so you know, the scope needs to be sighted in still, and it fires .95 caliber cartridges. Gwen only sent six bullets with it, so I'll give you money so you can set something up an ammo distributor, maybe get a bullet mold and press..." the three boys kept staring, and Yelette found it very distracting. "Oh, for— you three get out, don't you have some practice you need to catch up on?"

"Yes ma'am" they echoed each other, running to the elevator while excitedly talking to each other about new weapons for themselves.

Turning back to Pyrrha, she continued, "I also have the new clothes for you. I quite like them myself. Very classy." On the last word, she bowed with a smile, then pointed to a parcel on a chair to Pyrrha's right. Before she forgot, the redhead tried shifting the spear to a sword, but had no luck. "Just rifle and spear. Gwen told me that a two handed sword did not fit with your combat style."

"That was very considerate of her," Pyrrha nodded, sincerely thankful that she didn't need to bother with the urge to learn a new combat style just because it was available as an option. Stepping over to the parcel, she effortlessly broke the twine binding and lifted out a neatly folded stack of black and red clothing. She looked to the Headmaster with a happy smile, "I'm excited to try them on when I get back to my dorm."

"What are you talking about, put them on now!" Yelette barked.

Pyrrha's smile dropped. What was this she thought, the third, fourth time she would strip in front of other people with no regards to her privacy? "Are you going to look away?" she tried sheepishly.

"I'm an old lady Ms. Nikos, I don't care, now hurry up!"

"Yes ma'am." She removed her clothes she still had from the boat trip, keeping her underwear and bra, and figured out slowly the articles that went on from there. First came the black turtle neck shirt with the long sleeves and black thigh high stockings. Now not almost naked, she slipped into a pair of red short shorts and a red short sleeved double breasted jacket. "Ok," she said suspiciously, not a fan of the short shorts, looking at them anxiously as she unfolded the next couple pieces. A red two button poncho shawl with a large hood fit on top with no resistance of course, but there were leather straps underneath that locked the shawl to her shoulders. Undoing the buttons, she re-clasped the middle portion halfway over her left shoulder, leaving long fabric over her non dominant arm, a different section of drooping flowing fabric down her middle, and a black clothed right arm. Then finally came the split dress skirt. Using a temporary brown belt, she hung it on her hip, the dressing reaching down to the floor while she didn't have any heals to raise her. At the base in the back there was a knot in the dressing that shortened the back. Like her shawl, there were buttons and creases in the skirt she imagined had a function, and after a bit of tampering, she figured it out. At the bottom of the split that went down the middle of the skirt, there was a hole on each corner meant to go over large buttons to pin them. Folding the bottom corners of the dress behind her, she was left with legs unhindered save her upper thighs, but a curved triangular dress behind her. Last but not least was a short bandolier that laid across her breast underneath her poncho, clearly designed to hold six of the massive bullets for her new weapon. "It's interesting," offered Pyrrha, feeling a little suffocated in fabric.

"That's not all. My tailor is having armor made to go with it, a belt, gloves, boots, but that's what she got done in a day. I like it. That'll be good for the outdoors and colder regions." The Headmaster, pleased with the outcome, pulled out a cigarette and sat behind her desk. "Come on, I want to see you with your weapons."

"I'm sorry?" Pyrrha asked.

"I'm not going to lie Ms. Nikos, you're going to become an icon very soon, so I want to see the person who's going to be plastered on every Mistral poster. Here, a holster came with the gun." She threw the reddish brown leather and quiver like carrier to Pyrrha whom strapped it to above her hip and horizontally. Doing as she said, Pyrrha held her regular spear in her hand, shield on her back, and the new weapon behind her, poncho with it's left arm bias, and the folded cloak skirt that wrapped around her legs. Yelette whistled. "I think we got ourselves a crown model here. Alright, that's enough for today, I'm satisfied."

Crown. On the word, Pyrrha gasped to herself, fingers tracing lines in her loose and sprawled mane of hair. Her tiara was gone. For a moment she looked around the room, then remembered getting on the boat for Mistral, tiara already gone. Stroking her jaw, she realized her mother's heirloom was still in Vale. 

"Ms. Nikos?" questioned the older woman, taking notice to Pyrrha's sudden somatic.

The younger of the two dropped her hands and shook her head. "Uhm, nothing. Mrs. Yelette?" spoke up the redhead as she placed her spear behind her back.

"Yes?"

"Thank you. Thank you for everything you're doing for us." Once again the green eyes of the champion remained unwavering in their target of interest, Yelette, tired but thankful.

"Any time my girl. Now go, I don't like wasting time with idle chat." She waved away Pyrrha with the hand that held the cigarette.

"Yes ma'am. Good night." Pyrrha made it to the elevator where she called it up, but was held back when the doors opened.

"Don't forget your box Ms. Nikos," mentioned Yelette, nodding her head at the dark shiny box.

Pyrrha chuckled. "Silly me." Going back, she tucked it underneath her clothed arm, and made it a couple of steps back when Yelette asked her something, hand with cigarette outstretched.

"Hey Amber, could ya get me a light?" 

"Yeah sure" she said, turning back around and flicking her thumb, a small flame turning the end of the cigarette to black ash. 

Turning back around to leave, Pyrrha came to, looking back at Yelette with wide eyes, scared and feeling vulnerable, and somehow betrayed. Sharp breaths picking up, the redhead looked side to side with panic and stomped to the elevator where she slammed the ground floor button, giving a smiling and smoking Yelette one last confused and angry look before the doors separated them.

-End Chapter 3-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, let's set the record straight: I'm sorry I did two wardrobe changes in one chapter, it was in bad tastes, but now I don't have to worry too much about it for the moment. Also, I don't make any claims to being a fashion designer, but I want to give everyone different outfits without copying volume 4. Also I'm sorry but more are coming, but Pyrrha's is easily the longest, so the others will be short and sweet.


	4. Last Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh wow. It's been so long. I wrote this chapter in segments, out of order, over the course of 2 months, all of course well after 4 am. There are errors. The pacing is probably bad. Please inform me so I can correct it later. This is the chapter that single handedly stopped all of my writing progress, and I'm done tweaking it for the moment, I need progress. I'm sorry, here it is, blarglajdlsf.

Ruby was numb. Her body felt distant from her as she ran through a snow clad glade, a Beowolf following close behind. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't flash away with her semblance, the beast closing in. The moon stared her down in her pathetic jog, the white surface filling a third of the sky, too close to be natural she thought. Looking behind her, the movement of her neck feeling too difficult and stiff, she caught a glimpse of the lunging creature before she slammed into the ground, her muscles tensing violently. Pushing against it with her on her back, Ruby thought it was odd how her little arms could hold it back, given that she struggled enough. Waving her arms in front of her, she felt a pressure being relieved from her arm, like a needle being pulled out. For another minute she struggled, body still numb.  
Then she felt the pain.  
Grinding her teeth, Ruby's arms gave way to the enormous weight of the Beowolf, it's claws tearing into her body. Everything that had once hurt now came back, the little girl rolling in place to try and displace the wounds, but found no solution. The image of the moon burned itself into her mind as the red claws dragged across her face, blinding her and delivering her into blackness. Letting out a stifled cry, she reached for her eyes but did not feel flesh, and rolled over in anguish, her body feeling even more pain which now felt amplified compared to her numb state before. Feeling that the Grimm was not on her for the moment, Ruby fought the ground until she felt earth beneath her feet and ran with all her might, crying with eyes she couldn't see.  
Something loose and drooping ran across her body, but she ignored it, then she felt the distinctive touch of dirt under foot, wet crumbs sticking between her toes. After a moment of blind dashing, Ruby banged her knee into something low and hard, a chain of clamor ensuing where it sounded like falling debris. Picking her self up again, she continued to run until she slammed into something, sometimes something hard, sometimes something like fabric, and as she did so, she couldn't hear the growl of the Beowolf anymore but rather the sound of voices, whispers and shouts, inquisitive tones, and confused expletives.

"Ruby!" she heard someone call, a girl. Terrified of the notion that the Grimm learned her name, Ruby forced her legs harder despite the aches of her being. 

But she didn't get much farther.

"Ruby!" they said again, grabbing the young girl and trapping her in their arms. Ruby struggled and lost control of herself, but they just squeezed harder, repeating her name. "Ruby! It's me, Yang! Ruby! Come on, wake up! It's okay..."

"Let go of me!" Ruby cried, still fighting. "Stop tormenting me! Why!? Why do you exist!? Why...!?" her voice broke off as her body weakened it's spasms.

Yang followed Ruby down when the latter's knees gave out, cradling the frail figure in her embrace. Her sister was blind folded with heavy gauze, same around her chest frame where a patient's gown dangled, and blood trickled from a dot shaped hole in her arm. "Ruby, talk to me, what's wrong?" she spoke, her voice catching in her throat, "what happened to you?" Incoherent blabbering lead the brawler to believe Ruby wasn't really awake, and feared the other possibilities. Looking around at the gathering of soldiers flocking in to see who was screaming in the middle of the night, Yang could only think of one thing to do and that was to hide her sister from prying observers.

"Yang! Is that Ruby!?" Qrow sternly asked, Weiss next to him. "What happened?"

"I don't know!" Yang lifted her up into a bridal carry, hiding the girl's face in her shoulder although she knew no one would've really recognized Ruby with the dim lighting and bandaged body.

"You don't know who it is?" Qrow yelled, not angry but stressed out.

"I don't know what happened!" She jogged up to her uncle, pulling close to his ear and whispering "it's Ruby, I don't know what happened though."

"Is it Ruby?" exclaimed Weiss, noticeably panicked and reaching for Yang's arm.

"Shut up Weiss, Yang, bring her inside!"

Running to their tent, the blonde shushing and stroking the exposed hair of the broken girl along the way, the other former students of Beacon watched with wide eyes as Yang laid Ruby down on a hammock, pulling blankets over her and hugging her head to keep calming her. 

Qrow threw his hands at the youngsters, shooing them, "out, out!" until it was only him, his niece, and Weiss. "Ruby, can you hear me? What happened?" 

"I think she had a nightmare or something!"

Weiss, who hovered over Yang, pointed out the obvious, as someone needed to. "Those are patient duds, why is she wearing those? What'd they do?"

"Dammit!" went Qrow, standing up and away from his nieces. "They did something with her eyes no doubt, I was worried they'd would," he whispered the last half, though Yang and Weiss heard just fine but thought nothing of his distrust, as Ruby's current state clouded their reasoning. "I'm going to find the medical staff and find out what went on, I'll be back..." 

After Qrow ran out, Ruby's cries simmered down to weak whimpers, asking, "Yang?"

"Yeah?" The brawler gave her room to breathe.

Ruby uncurled herself, though kept a hand pressed against her chest. Her other hand rested on her brow in a tired fashion, and she said, "don't let me fall asleep again..." 

"Why?" returned Weiss softly, "you need your rest you know, and we're here for you."

"Nightmares..." Ruby continued, "...every single night. Every single night I see the Grimm, and I can't stop—" her voice started breaking again, as she was clearly not finished with crying, "I can't stop them."

Weiss and Yang looked to each other, distraught and lost. 

Qrow came back with one of the doctors not long after, the doctor explaining the gist of Ruby's operation, telling them that Ruby needed to rest for a few days before taking off the bandages, and that after that she would be fine. Qrow talked them into letting Ruby stay with her friends while she rested, though the doctor gave the huntsmen explicit orders that the young girl had to report to her unit when the bandages came off.

As time passed, Ruby sobered up whilst her teammates fell victim to the late hour, Weiss passing out on her bunk while Yang tried cajoling a restless Ruby into sleep. Hearing footsteps belonging to a single person draw near, Yang asked who it was that entered the tent.

"Jaune, why?" he responded, standing at the door flap without peering inside, knowing better than to intrude on the girl's privacy.

Yang whispered to her sister, "hold on," getting up and meeting the boy just out of sight. Speaking quietly so no one else could hear, she conspired with the knight. "How do you feel about taking another ride outside?"

He folded his arms, deep set wrinkles forming in his seldom used brown coat, shrugging as he thought out loud "I wouldn't be horribly against it, I need all the practice I can get. Wait, why do you care?" His eyes widened and darted to her tent room and then to her pajama's, certain thoughts rising to mind, asking "wait, you don't need me gone because you're, uh, you've got company" he air quoted 'company' with his hands, "and everyone else is gone, do you?"

The brawler cocked her head briefly before slapping his shoulder, dismissing his insinuation, "no you jackass, I was wondering if you could like, I don't know, give Ruby a ride or something to keep her mind of things, tire her out, keep her company. I would but she's just getting more antsy."

"Ruby's here?" he almost shouted, resisting the urge to explode in his surprise. 

A frown. "Yeah, she's apparently been having nightmares and is wide awake right now." The blonde folded her arms too, striking a pose and scratching her head wistfully.

"Why didn't she come to us before now?" he asked, perplexed by Ruby's sudden presence where before she eluded them.

A sigh. "You'd be better asking her rather than me."

Jaune didn't wish to waste time. "Kay, I'll be back in a couple minutes." 

Nodding to each other, they separated, Jaune to get his horse, and Yang to ready Ruby. When they regrouped just outside, Jaune saw Ruby in her fresh, vulnerable state for the first time, hushed in his shock. Yang shepherd her to Jaune, the smaller girl wrapped up in one of Yangs oversized coats and almost perfectly sized boots. She too remained silent, letting her sister and friend direct her up and onto the horse. The boy was glad he caught the shifting of facial muscles telegraphing Ruby's abrupt curiosity, hidden behind her medical mask. 

Climbing on after her, the knight circled the chestnut horse to settle control, looking to Yang and saluting as he said, "I'll bring her back... I uh, I guess in like an hour maybe?" He didn't know when at all really, believing his interpretation of Yang's desire's to be keeping Ruby company until she tires, but he had no idea when that would be, and he didn't want to say 'when she get's tired,' either, thinking his passenger might not appreciate being treated like a toddler.

"Doesn't matter, just no funny business Jaune. If I found out you did something, there's a line of people you know who might be inclined to kill you" she warned.

Images of sitting at the end of Weiss's blade and Yang's gauntlets during training flashed through his mind, and without a shred of humor or sarcasm replied, "I know. I'm more upset by the fact that you don't completely trust me..."

In a rare moment, Yang gave a sincere apology, "sorry," slightly ashamed of herself as she nodded her head, averting her gaze.

Sighing, Jaune gave Ruby warning to hold on, starting the horse along on a slow trot. The clouds splotched the sky, and the rider followed the rays of scattered moonlight and tent lights out of the encampment, prompting the girl's first words to him since she last saw him before the attack on Vale. "Not into the woods, not too far." 

Jaune strained his ears to hear her whisper over the low whistle of passing wind. "Of course," was his answer, one part agreement upon what he thought was an obvious assumption, one part unease, unsure why she felt it necessary to say it at all. "Yet again I meet you, Ruby Rose, one on one, looking worse for wear. You don't have the best of luck, do you?" he solemnly asked, remembering the previous times he's had to comfort her. It felt too often to him, and not from her own weakness but from luck's cruel tastes. 

"I guess," she replied. He waited for a longer answer, but got none. 

"Well guess what, I think I can do something this time. Here, I've figured out a riding path, for practice you know? Promise to hold on tight though, okay?"

"Sure..." she mumbled, arms loosely laying against her driver's belly, arbitrarily skeptical. Then Jaune kicked the side of the horse. Then the horse started running. Cold, brisk air rushed against her skin moist by sweat, loud and embracing, like whenever she flew the air in a fight, except now there was an irregular motion pattern made by the hind quarters of the horse, bucking her up and into Jaune's back with every fast step. Her arms cinched around his waist and she buried her head in between his shoulders, his hoody flapping atop her hair as she muffled her laughter into his back, her giggles vibrating from her chest into his. In her delight, she didn't even notice her new eye ache, and though she couldn't see it, he too smiled gleefully, his skill greatly tested by having not only a passenger but racing in dark conditions, tested like one who races their vehicles through familiar roads.

Starting to loose sufficient vision to run, the knight slowed the horse to a walk, petting him for good measure. "We'll relax for a bit."

"What's her name?" Ruby asked, voice noticeably more lively, though still soft.

"His," Jaune corrected, though gently, "his name is... well, I'm still deciding. I'm really liking the idea of Captain Nitzel Schruffle Wuggen or something like that..."

A giggle. "Captain Nizel Shuffle Wiggins? Really?"

"No, Captain Nitzel Schruffle Wuggen, come on Ruby, don't be rude."

"Is that so?" The way in which Ruby's soft voice drifted like italics through the air as her cheek pressed into him tickled something in Jaune's brain, sending shiver's down his spine, forcing him to clear his throat to remain on his train of thought.

"Yep. It's either that or Shit Face" he stated in a 'matter of fact' kind of tone.

"But..." she started, stuttering, "that rude simply— that's simply rude."

"Yeah," he retorted, "he can be a rude horse. He's lucky I'm so forgiving. So yeah, Captain Nitzel Schruffle Wuggen it is, or Levon for short."

"Huh?"

"He shall be Levon, and he shall be a good horse... hopefully, I hope, I'll try." His confidence fell off.

A comfortable silence ensued, only now the hoots of owls in the wet winter woods catching their attention. Minutes passed and Jaune stopped them at a clearing, exclaiming in hushed words and phrases, helping Ruby down as he did so. "What is it?" she asked.

"You're not going to believe this, but there is a uh, nest, swarm? A bunch, I guess is what you'd call it, a bunch of fireflies down the hill here, and guess whose there..." Jaune whispered, pleased and smug. Ruby shrugged. He threw down his horse blanket for him and Ruby to sit on, Levon kneeling behind the girl. "Ren and Nora."

She followed his hand downwards, resting bottoms first then pulling her knees up to her chin. "What're they doing here?"

"Dancing." A chuckle.

"How so? Like slow or goofy?"

"Like, slow and completely lost in the moment, they don't even notice us." From where Jaune sat, past some grass granting them cover, down a far stretch of hill, in the middle of a swirl of softly floating fireflies danced the two in question. It was a classical dance, to his surprise, Ren's arm around Nora's waist, and her hand resting on his shoulder, both of them joining their second hand together at the side. "It's about time there's progress on the front. Wait, are fireflies in season, late fall, early winter?"

She didn't believe him, it was too random, too nice a thought. "You're kidding right?" 

"Naw, here, I'll video tape it, and show it to you later..." Whipping out his scroll, Jaune started recording the scene.

"That's odd. Have you seen them do this before?"

"No, we stumbled onto them by luck, serious." He waved his scroll around, making sure to capture Ruby's fleeting chuckle.

"Heh. Well that's nice."

"Yeah," Jaune nodded to no one's sight. "What do you think their children will be like? I'm thinking the first born's going to be like Nora. Ginger hair, but pink eyes, he's going to be wild all round."

She giggled. "Black hair, blue eyes, she's going to be adorable. "

"Is that a bamble get I hear?" Jaune drawled as he looked to Ruby.

Her mouth motioned words but took several seconds to finally remark "bamble get?" If anyone could see her brow, it would've been scrunched in confusion.

"Bamble— eh, fu— ugh..." Jaune drew his tongue between his lips to blow a raspberry. "Hmm, gamble, is that a bet I hear? What do we gamble?" he said quickly.

"Food— uh, no, uhm, I don't know" She shook her head. Hunger gnawed at her, but that had apparently become standard. 

He spoke out loud for his own sake as much as hers. "Well what do want in the event of victory? A dare would be stupid... maybe a gift."

"Sure," she agreed.

"Either to the winner, or maybe to Ren and Nora."

"Or the kid."

"Or the kid," he echoed.

"Something worth it, like a weapon."

"Nothing too grown up, maybe a toy."

"Something meaningful though, like a pet."

"Yeah, like a dog."

"Yeah, like a golden retriever."

"What, no, like a wolf hybrid."

Jaune nodded. "I think we have our bet."

"So, if the kid is black haired and pinked eyed, you'll get him a retriever, and if she's orange and blue, I get her a wolf?"

"What? You just described Ren and Nora. You mean if it's a boy with orange hair and blue eyes, then wolf, but if it's a girl with black hair and blue eyes, retriever."

"Wait, you have it backwards."

"No I— oh shit. Yeah, if she has blue hair and orange eyes, retriever, and visa versa.

"Yeah, and pink— no, orange hair and black eyes, wolf."

"Wait."

"We're too tired for this."

"Yeah."

"Don't forget this conversation though."

"I don't think it would be fair to bet on something like this actually."

"What?" he recoiled, "does the notion of gambling on someone's life bother—"

Her head jerked in his direction, "—what? No. I just think it's obvious that Nora's genes will come through stronger than Ren's."

Jaune took a long moment to logically come to the same conclusion as Ruby, but struck a brick wall. "What?"

"Well, Nora's stronger than Ren, so she's got the dominant genes, so... pink hair... orange eyes..." Ruby paused. "Pink— orange hair, blue eyes..."

"But you said..." He stopped himself and disregarded the failure in consistency. "Anyways, you know that's not how genes work, right?"

"Well, I remember napping during that science week, but, I remember the teacher saying that the stronger genes are the dominant ones."

"That's... exactly the opposite of what the teacher said. Well not opposite, but that's not how it works, dominant genes just means something about some genes taking precedence in determining... genes."

"But how does that make sense? Are you saying a strength gene could lose to a non-strengthy gene? That's stupid."

"Yeah, that's not how that works at all. In any capacity."

"How does that make sense?"

"I don't know. Sorcery."

"You're going to have to explain it to me later." The two of them left each other alone for the moment, Ruby taking to touching finger tip to finger tip. Standard sensations became nonstandard whilst blind, her imagination filling in many of the blanks before her. Finally, "anyways, I was thinking you'll be their godfather." The concept brought a smaller yet stronger smile to her lips.

"You think? I mean...." Jaune sounded dubious, and started considering the other candidates, "Weiss, no, mean aunt maybe. Blake, no, absent aunt. Yang, no, but cool baby sitter. You... maybe, maybe Pyrrha, and I guess maybe me."

"What do you mean 'maybe' for me? They definitely wouldn't choose me" she said cooly.

"You could protect them a lot better than I could, and you're sweet, so not a bad choice." He smiled to himself, realizing once again she couldn't see his face.

"Thank you," a smile, "but I think they'd probably trust you still."

"Why?"

"I don't know, I feel mother's have a bad track record in our world, fate would be kinder to you."

They sat in silence for a moment, the boy seriously considering what she could've meant by that. "I don't think I have the whole story on that, but I think I might see where you're coming from."

"You and Nora have also been hurt less than the rest of us, so, yeah..." Fingertips traced from her heart to her collar bone, then to her shoulder, finally drawing a line from her neck to her bandaged brow. "I forgot how much pain hurts" she continued, contemplative even in her simple statement.

"I'm sorry." His voice cracked quietly.

"Don't be, you weren't the one who did this to me. What's-his-face and Grimm did this to me... and, something I've never seen."

His head turned to her, her distant tone making his heart skip a beat, a fearful thread pulling throughout his body. "Wait, you mean like a Grimm uncommon to Vale? Like some of the migrated Grimm I heard about?"

"No," she said, Jaune's fear becoming more tangible. "I've read all the books on Grimm many times before, illustrated mostly, and what I saw wasn't in any of the books."

"That's... worrisome." The existence of Grimm had always been a question for the ages, where they came from, and why they do what they do, but something made people feel safe in simply believing they knew what kind of monsters were out there. People like Jaune and Ruby knew all the different kinds, even if they hadn't seen them in person. Any seeds of doubt in their foundation of knowledge scared them, just another step closer to the unknown. "What did it look like?" 

No longer steady were the fingers upon her face, as they now tapped at her temple non-rhythmically. "Jaune, it... it was made of smoke, Jaune," Ruby's irregular breathing shot equally irregular bursts of visible breath into the air, "it was like black smoke, and it smiled at me, Jaune, with pearly white, perfect teeth, Jaune, it smiled at me, deliberately, Jaune..."

Jaune saw the first stages of hysteria and intervened. "Ruby, hey, calm down, did this thing really freak you out? Usually Grimm don't bother you." Dropping his scroll, he grabbed her frantic hand, clapping both of his around her pale skin, both beings cold to the touch.

Tears behind cloth formed, "I don't know," her voice broke, a faint whine choking her breaths in between phrases, "there was something about it, or maybe the fact that I saw it vaporize a kid, a baby, had something to do with it." 

For the first time he could recall, he gasped. "No way... no Ruby..."

Thinking back minutes before, talking about Ren and Nora's hypothetical child, Ruby, even if for a moment, imagined a life and personality to this child. Someone who would grow up to be someone else. A person, just like her or Jaune. They have a future. But the child she saw, who had very real parents, who suffered real death, had itself ended before it could ever know anything, it was killed before it could ever live. A person who could've stood right alongside Ruby, or Jaune, or Ren, or anyone, talking, acting, aware, was simply erased from all of those fates. "Right in front of me Jaune, it was just a baby—" she stopped, the words not forming for the effort to resist sobbing proved too much.

"Shhh, shhh, you can't think about that," he whimpered, pulling her into his chest, muffling her cries. It proved too much for Jaune as well. Pyrrha leaving, innocents dying, civil war, and Ruby's honest pathetic state wore him down. "Don't think about it, I'm sorry, but it's too much." His eyes watered and turned red, but he tried his damnedest to keep it just at that. How could Ruby find confidence if he didn't show any either.

"I don't want to hunt anymore," she continued. "I'm scared, I'm terrified, I've never felt this helpless." It registered barely as a whisper.

"I... I can't think of any nice words, Ruby, other than..." Silence... on his part.

What was he to say? He couldn't know the depths Ruby had mentally fallen. Thinking hard on trying to relate, they sat there for several minutes, her whimpers weak but enduring.

At least, until finally she composed herself if only enough to mumble at a steady pace, a somber metronome conducting her confession. "And it's not just the baby, but I didn't realize it until I saw that thing, but... I'm so tired." The air became heavier, thicker, at her word, at 'tired', the burden of going on suddenly palpable. "I'm not even seventeen yet, and I've given so much to my... ideal. What was I thinking? Heroism? When I think about it, I don't have anything, Jaune, I don't have anything except fighting. I live to fight, and it's not enough. Maybe if I had only lost an eye, or a handful of fights, or just some of my childhood, I would be fine, but no, fight fight fight, kill kill kill, and I deluded myself in thinking that fondly thinking about the times we could have together, you and me, me and Yang, me and Weiss, all of them, would be enough to offset my... life." She spat the last word, clearly disgusted with the notion that what she had consisted of something reminiscent of a worthy life.

"It's hard, isn't it..." he choked. This was the most he had heard Ruby say in a long, long time.

And it was not good.

He didn't think himself clever for recognizing the clear existential crisis Ruby was undergoing. Ruby was doing something that they had continuously avoided, though mostly unwittingly, and that was stopping to smell the roses. Roses of blood rot and growing barbs. Something he now knew he couldn't do lest he falter too.

"Waking up is hard. Training is exhausting and painful. Schoolwork is— was tedious and stressful. Thinking about the people out there who want to ruin everything for whatever reason is upsetting. Fighting them, hunting Grimm, it's a task with the best outcome being to not lose anyone, and not to be hurt in the process. It can only go down from net zero. We make no headway, and we fight uphill. Forever. And this new Grimm? Just another reminder that we're clueless pawns in the machinations of the fucking cosmos." More spiteful crescendos.

Her swearing would've surprised him more on a normal day, except this wasn't one of them. Again, he felt verbally inadequate. "Well—"

"I just want to sleep, Jaune. A poofy bed, warm, white sheets, clean, early morning, I want to look out the window and see sunshine light up my bed. I want to see fields of wheat or barley or whatever waving in the wind, with a cute little windmill churning on a hill. And silence. Not the silence of people slowly churning in a dorm, but the silence of isolation. I don't want to see any Grimm in the horizon, just plains. Peace." A beautiful picture, one they could agree on. She shivered underneath his arms.

A chilled hand reached down and tugged up on her chin. Through blurry eyes he looked her over, face half concealed, but lips telling a story with more than words. Small lips, as they were, curled and trembled, shaky breath whistling through her chilled nose. Never had Jaune wanted to kiss Ruby more than now, a hope for comfort for both parties, a distraction, and a promise of finer things in life. But he couldn't forget Pyrrha, and guilt stabbed him in the center of his chest.

Admittedly, it hurt less than the times he actually had been hacked or cut, those pains easily more searing, intense, and crippling, but his guilt was not without its brand of pain. This time, it was hard to breathe.

But inaction was not an option. Putting his modest muscle to use, the knight scooped Ruby up from under her legs, cradled her back, and sat her sideways in his lap. Taking his arms out of his sleeves, he tented them both under his wool lined coat. Levon the horse felt like participating too and rubbed his cheek against the back of Jaune's head.

Warmth grew in the space between their chests, and Jaune was reminded of the simple pleasure of human contact, the feel of something real, the feel of another mind, another conscious soul, that close to one's own. He rubbed his stubbled cheek against the dome of her head, noticing now that Ren and Nora were gone from the swirl of fireflies. 

"You can't not fight." He sighed deeply and grimaced, Ruby rising slightly with the inflation in his chest. "For the sake of others, pure and simple." 

Fitting words for a knight, or perhaps a soldier.

"But what's the point of fighting if it never makes a difference," she muttered. "I can't stop what's coming, I can't kill or slow down what never really dies. And then they fade away, like we never hunted them down at all."

Frustrations of a hunter, or perhaps a hero?

"You have to fight Ruby, then eventually, the fighting will end. You can rest."

Her head shook beneath his cheek, nodding 'no'. "You're an idiot Jaune. The Grimm, bad people, misfortune, they've been around since the beginning. We will never win, or they'll never lose. They will be around long after you and me die, and nothing we do will matter. All that struggling, for nothing."

"Fortune, good people, fun times, they've been around since the beginning," he mused. He couldn't be wrong with that logic, and there was comfort in that alone.

"I've had my fill," she heartlessly disregarded him. "Let me end."

Let me end.

The words that dribbled from her mouth tapped his ears with nerve shattering force, his body suddenly rigid and surreal. Jaune became viciously aware of his surroundings, the nipping cold, his visible breath, the scattered clouds, the shimmering grass, his sleeping horse, breaths now loud and obtrusive, the whistle of the wind, and Ruby's weight. The frog that had been catching in his throat now was just a wet and restrictive lump, and the limit he put on his breathing as to not rustle Ruby disappeared, a deep inhale moving both of them marginally. He struggled to recall his sympathy as his grip on her loosened.

"No. Never." When did he voice get so throaty, so gravelly?

"Give me a reason." When did she ever sound so small?

"That kid you couldn't save; he deserved a chance. A life. You will save the next one. We will, because they deserve it."

A second could've been several, twenty could've been ten, all Jaune knew was that the time that passed was longer than it needed to be. "Dammit Jaune. Fine."

Two small, pale hands crawled up his chest, both at an awkward angle. One gripped on his shoulder, the other his collar bone. Both pulled him closer, white knuckles and quivering fingers digging into his shirt and skin. It hurt him a little, but he didn't care. Instead, he closed his arms on her and reciprocated, squeezing her tightly as if he was afraid she might be pulled away.

After minutes, the painful grip eased into a lethargic embrace and his hyper awareness dulled down to below normal. Jaune kept his eyes closed.

"It's different this time, isn't it?" she whispered.

"What do you mean?"

"You comforting me. This time is different."

He thought. Unlike previous times, Ruby wasn't seeking full reprieve from momentary issues. Rather, Ruby finally stumbled off an existential cliff she couldn't climb back up, and her disposition would be forever be tainted by how she fell tonight. He tried catching her, but she would still feel the fall, the crushing stop at the bottom. The pain will never pass.

Let me end.

It was different. "Yes." A long sigh. "When we walk away from this, we won't leave with comfort, but a new resolution. It can't be resolved, but you have a new resolve. I can't do this for you again."

Minutes again.

Ruby shifted in place, "a flower someone plants in their garden dies regardless of the care they give it, and mourn it's passing, but a flower that grows by it's own volition they call a weed and scorn it. What right do we have to condemn some plants as weeds and others not simply by their determination to live?"

"Forgive me" muttered the boy, "but that came out of nowhere." They shared the first chuckle in a little while.

She shrugged. "I just never understood gardeners. If a flower grows on it's own, they hate it, then waste time caring for the weak flowers."

A hearty laugh, to Ruby's surprise, and Jaune said, "well, when you put it like that..."

"Ugh, I mean... they look the same. Flowers they classify as weeds oppose to flowers they leave as flowers. Weeds are the ones that struggle and win, instead of giving up, why scorn them so?"

"Well, that's a change of tune?" he smirked.

"Shut up. For example, I didn't ask for a sister, but I have one, and I love her. Are some people that much of control freaks?"

"Weeds kill the other flowers though."

"They can, but they don't have to either. They don't expressly kill anything unless there's a lack of nourishment to begin with, I think."

"A thought; Roses are flowers." Jaune had been waiting a long time to joke about her name, and now was his chance. Ruby however, blind, couldn't catch the humor in his expression, and took the statement seriously. Or at least as seriously as a whispering, half awake girl could.

"Sure. Flowers with thorn vines and inch long barbs. A rose bush could kill a horse if it tried running through it by way of blood loss. But sure. Flower, a murderous, thorny, flower. I'm pretty sure rose bushes are used as barriers sometimes."

"What's a rose bush doing trying to run through a horse?" Ruby grunted in retort. "Besides, if a rose is a flower that strives, doesn't that counter your point about weeds being misunderstood or whatever?"

"Em, uh, fuh, eh," she fumbled, failing to form a logical train of thought in her head and in her words. "Well it's not consistent, excuse me. Like, they're called violets, but everyone talks about them like they're blue. I thought violet was purple."

"I don't know, good question, but hey, another thought; maybe roses get a pass because people expect the thorns, like they need it. As in, you can't have the beauty without the dark side of it, it needs to balance. Or as you said, with the barrier, they need the thorns and the prettiness."

"Stop talking, I can't follow anymore. Too tired." All she could do was mumble.

"Maybe" Jaune drawled, "people need a certain red rose," his head nuzzled hers, subtlety not being the name of the game, "they need this rose to be as deadly as they need it to be charming. Solace is valuable."

Jaune could've said anything however, as the result would've been the same. "Ugh..." Ruby throated listlessly. 

"Ruby?" he whispered. No response. He let her fall asleep, social ambitions giving way to his own exhaustion.

After a quick nap, Jaune lifted Ruby into a bridal carry with his coat wrapped around her like a blanket. With one arm, he bundled the blanket he laid down, stuffing it into a sack on Levon, and pocketed his scroll. To his surprise, the battery was dead. Exercising painful dexterity, the knight managed to finagle himself and his passenger onto the steed without waking her, seating her in front of Jaune this time. This allowed him to hold her around the waist and gently walk them all back to camp. 

He first stopped at the horse pens, dismounting Captain Nitzel Schruffle Wuggen and closing the gate. The saddle and gear sacks were still on him, and Jaune didn't feed, groom, or lay him to rest. He knew he would get flak for not properly taking care of his horse, but he thought not being pampered would build the steed's character, or at least that was the least lazy excuse he could think of. Further bridal carrying from the pen, the rest of the base was dark and quiet, a stark contrast to an otherwise busy and noisy scene which the young man found quite creepy. Ducking into the large tent where his former classmates rested, Jaune drew a sharp breath to see Cardin sitting on a crate, a small knife shimmering silver from some unknown light source shaving bits of some ration into his palm. The only way Jaune recognized the huntsmen in the near pitch blackness was by his silhouette, most notably his hair, lacking any outstanding shape like Ren's or Qrow's. Ignoring him for the moment, Jaune slipped past the flaps of Yang and Weiss's 'room', and with the utmost care, laid the small figure onto a hammock with whom he assumed was Yang, pale hair sprawled in all directions. 

Sighing in relief, he left, and sat across from Cardin.

"Here," the more masculine boy's voice sighed so low Jaune would've never heard it were it not for the preceding dead silence. Cardin's hand outreached, to which Jaune held out his hand in return. Rations cut into pencil width and of around four inch lengths fell into his hand.

Raising the sticks to his mouth, Jaune shuddered as he bit into the old chocolate, its bitter and bland taste never designed to be enjoyed. "Thanks," he offered.

"Hmm. Where did you guys go?" Cardin asked.

"Out. Why are you still up?" Jaune answered and asked cautiously.

"Her screams. They kinda put me on edge." Jaune hadn't heard this kind of sincerity or vulnerability from Cardin before, and surprised him.

"Hmm." It made sense to him, no doubt. People crying was never a good thing. Usually. 

"Hope you didn't try anything weird while she's all... weirded out." Fortunately for Jaune, there were hints of humor.

"Hmph," he smiled, "what's with you and Yang. Suddenly I'm a creep." A second bite of the chocolate proved just as bad as the first.

"Don't worry, you've always been weird. It's just that now, you might be hard up now Pyrrha's gone." Were it brighter, Jaune would see the wide grin on his face.

Jaune would've also seen it was the same grin on his own face. "Wow, so vulgar. Hey, at least I'm not a virgin like you."

"A virgin? Like me?" Cardin sounded amused by the notion.

After a quick inhale, Jaune interrupted him, "I don't wanna know. I'm sorry, that was pretty presumptuous."

A minute passed where Jaune nibbled at his sticks of chocolate and Cardin kept carving his block. "I hope she recovers. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry Pyrrha had to go. I kinda miss her too."

Eventually, Jaune agreed, "yeah," hiding his darker thoughts.

"You know she's missing you too."

Without anger or resentment, Jaune plainly mused, "now if I enjoyed her suffering, that thought would be of consolation."

A shot cracked the air itself, the explosion mistakable for raw, unadulterated thunder. Pyrrha dropped her new sniper rifle and rolled sideways out of her firing position to clamp both hands over her eye, a fresh gash now bleeding from behind her eyebrow. 

"You hit low and to the left," Neptune shouted from a feet steps aways, binoculars raised. Looking down the early morning shooting range, Pyrrha had hit the target at half a mile away on her fist shot, but within a foot of the center. Lowering the sighting device, he finally noticed the redhead rolling on the ground. With slight concern, he asked "you okay?"

A groan of pain. "Recoil. The scope got my eye." 

"Should probably get a muzzle break" he thought out loud.

"Yeah, thanks," Pyrrha returned sarcastically. She crawled back to her massive rifle, the yellow sun reflecting gold and orange off the long barrel. Blood trickled down the side of her face down to her chin while she adjusted the dials on her scope.

"Anyways, as I was saying, things should turn out okay. I mean, technically, we're home. Things aren't too bad. We get to visit our families for the first time in a while. Your dad doesn't live too far from the city, right?" Neptune chatted optimistically.

"My dad?" Pyrrha queried, her head turning from the scope. 

"Yeah, your dad," Neptune repeated, somewhat confused by her own apparent confusion.

"My dad? Yeah, no, my dad," she blinked sporadically for a moment, "yeah, lives uh... close. In the hills."

"Uhm, yeah. So you get to see him, which is nice. Silver lining. Also, I was talking to the guys, and we think the fighting won't last more than a month before the Kingdoms come back together. Imagine summer break, except in the winter, then we get to see everyone from Beacon again."

"Sure," Pyrrha thoughtlessly replied, her hand now on the trigger and the butt of the gun braced thoroughly against her shoulder.

"Hey," Neptune laughed, "what do you think the first thing you're going to do is when you get to see Jaune again?"

"Jaune?" she blinked again. "Oh, Jaune, yeah." She aimed.

Before he raised his binoculars, the boy eyed his friend, shivers running down his spine. Something was clearly off, both in the way Pyrrha moved and in the way she seemed distant, distracted. Not even overtly polite, a warning sign for Pyrrha if there ever was one. 

And then, as though answering a different question, the redhead mumbled, "Jaune. That would be nice." Then fired. Thunder echoed for miles.

Neptune looked down range. A large hole appeared an inch to the right of the center target spot. He whistled. "At this range, I would call that good enough."

"Motherfucker!" the shooter shouted, on her back and squirming. Blood smeared her hands, forehead, and cheek.

"You should've fucking braced yourself then!" he shouted, angry at the very thought of profanity coming from Pyrrha.

"I did!" she snapped back.

-End Chapter 4-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry. This wasn't a happy chapter.
> 
> But hey, now that a RWBY volume won't be approaching anytime soon, and it's not airing anymore, I'll have to get my RWBY fix from writing fan fic again. Cheers.


	5. Spearhead

The first day of the second month, the final day before the peace ended, two flaming heads of red hair bobbed out of the bus, their owners standing at the base of a forested hill blanketed in fresh snow. Pyrrha and Scarlet adjusted their clothes and began their upward hike towards Pyrrha's house.

“Did you know,” Scarlet begun, his accent still somewhat strange to Pyrrha's ears, “the gifts I got for everyone for St. David's Day are still wrapped up in a storage locker in Vale?” He gave a nervous laugh. “Same for my team.”

“Same for me. I wonder if the others ever celebrated.”

Of course, St. David's Day festivities never had the chance to start, the attack in Vale throwing the world into a frenzy, but Pyrrha could only wonder if her friends had the chance to open gifts after the fact.

“I could be your brother,” remarked Scarlet. She shot him a lost look.

“What?” she asked flatly.

He grinned. “I mean, we're going to meet your father, I can only guess he's a redhead like you. You're his daughter. I have red hair. Some neighbor watching us might think we're siblings.”

Her head dipped to the side with raised brows. “I guess so.” He wasn't wrong. “Thanks for coming with me by the way.”

“No problem. After saying hi then bye to my family yesterday, I found it was way easier on the ride back with company.” The swashbuckler glanced to his friend, finding himself surprised. “Pyrrha? I haven't seen you this happy looking since we left Vale.”

The ends of her mouth curled upwards, her cheeks full and eyes wide. As they were moving along the walkway past the tunnel of trees, the girl's head swiveled slowly, her eyes taking pictures of the once familiar nature, the house now in sight. “It's just... I feel like I'm seeing all of this for the first time is all, happy memories...”

Which was partially true. A part of Pyrrha that was watching the scene play for the first time also received with it the fond childhood memories the old Pyrrha was reliving with elation; one side of the coin was watching a happy movie the other side had lived. Before she knew it, her step felt lighter. In her brief experience, this meant that her fragments of soul agreed for lack of better words. Perhaps they were harmonizing with similar emotions she thought.

Boots clicked against the wood porch boards, both figures now standing before a door, the lights inside dark. Her arm appeared from her massive crimson shawl, and knuckles rapped loudly against the wooden door. 

For a minute, silence.

“Out for groceries?” Scarlet offered while exchanging looks with Pyrrha.

“Maybe.” She looked again through the windows, this time urgency rising in her voice, “wait, too many lights are off!” Taking one step back, she kicked the door, the frame splintering at the latch and the door bouncing off the inside wall. Pyrrha glided in, whipping out a shotgun hidden in the umbrella stand by the entrance, pumping it with a clear “shook shak.”

Scarlet followed closely, rummaging his hand through the umbrella stand for a frantic second, finally pulling out a normal blue umbrella and brandishing it like a sword. Apparently there was only the one weapon and having a tool in hand was better than none. 

“Stay here,” she whispered, striding smoothly towards a hallway on the left, gun leveled. 

Obeying, he remained still, listening to Pyrrha's echoing footsteps as he surveyed the room around him. It was homely, well decorated by that standard, with only a few rustic nature paintings on the walls and instead many family pictures and shelves littered with books, jars, and assorted trinkets and toys. An empty vase sat alone on the table next to the large window, blinds down. Misty blue colored the world.

Turning around, he pressed the door into its frame, though with a broken latch it wouldn't stay closed. Pyrrha re-entered the living room and went down the hallway to the right this time. Scarlet tip toed closer to one of the walls, finding his gaze inexplicably fixed on a photo of who he presumed was Pyrrha. She was young, surrounded with family, endless smiles, untouched innocence.

A minute passed, and Pyrrha returned to the living room, looking around herself still frantic. Scarlet spoke out loud, though he didn't mean to ask her directly, “do you think this little girl in this picture knew... do you think she knew who she was going to be one day?” He chewed his lip. Looking over finally, he stepped back from Pyrrha's maddened scowl. “Uh, uhm, never mind.”

Pyrrha entered the adjacent kitchen, pulling open silverware drawers and cabinet doors. She tore the lid off the kitchen trash can and pulled out an opened and emptied envelope dirtied with a coffee stain or something similar. She read aloud, “Mistral department of military recruitment and drafting—” her hand slammed against the countertop and then, without pause, punched through one of the cabinet doors, dishware shattering violently inside. 

He took a step back, genuinely afraid of this rage filled Pyrrha he had never seen.

“He was drafted! They drafted my dad!” she yelled, pacing withing the confines of the kitchen.

Scarlet turned his back and headed for the door, barely finding the courage to say, “I'll leave you alone.”

The better part of an hour passed when Pyrrha eventually met Scarlet outside, the door still open. They both examined it one last time before Pyrrha stated, “I left a scroll message to one of the neighbors, they'll fix the door.”

“What about... your dad?” he asked, sensitive to her mood.

Her sigh manifested as a long cone of mist, and she continued forward towards Scarlet with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. “He left a note. He was proud to be selected to be of service to Mistral's cause. He was sorry to not have seen me before he left.” Pyrrha passed the boy and started down the walkway back to the street, red robes hovering just across the top of the snow, her boots buried underneath. She never looked back as she said, “he said all the things a father should say to his daughter.”

Scarlet shivered. “A father to his daughter...? You believe him, right?”

She never waited for him to catch up. “I guess.”

The bus ride back was quiet.

The elevator doors to Yelette's office opened with misleading calm, Pyrrha marching in stern, furious rhythm, Neptune, Sage, and Scarlet coming in at a nervous delay. The headmaster raised a curious brow at the sudden entrance. “What can I do for you, young lady?”

“I accept your task.” Pyrrha spoke as tersely as Yelette had on their first encounter, whilst Yelette chose vigilance, switching the roles.

“You accept my task?” she echoed. In the passing days, the headmaster had approached the four of them with a mission, one of critical importance, one of lucrative subterfuge, and one of immense difficulty. “Are you sure, although I can't trust anyone else to do this, it may be too much—”

“I will go and free Ozpin.”

Pyrrha stood defiantly and without waver.

Neptune, behind her, rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. After a pregnant pause, submitted, “me too.”

Sage and Scarlet looked to each other, each gritting their teeth. Sage rolled his neck and followed, “I as well.”

“Son of a bitch,” the last muttered under his breath, “yeah, me four.”

Yelette grinned ear to ear. “It's good to see such confident gusto. I shall call Teires.” 

As the older woman reached for a scroll sitting atop a ornate stand upon her desk, Pyrrha interrupted her. “No. If we're doing this, I can't look after a child while we're doing this.”

Scarlet staggered in place, then leaned towards his friends. “What kid, who's Teires?”

“It was the kid who met us when we first got here,” answered Sage cooly.

“I insist Ms. Nikos, he may be a help to you,” the lady retorted politely.

“No. It's too dangerous. Find someone else, we're breaking Ozpin out.” The angle on Pyrrha's scowl deepened.

“Fine,” Yelette yielded, hands up in surrender. “I'd rather you do this than not at all.” She leaned forward, her green and yellow sleeves draping from her arms as she rested her chin upon her fists. Softly but quickly she continued. “You must leave tonight. A light passenger airship is landed on a cargo ship in the bay, the cargo ship is called The Tournamer, tell the captain I sent you, he'll be notified of your arrival. Everything you need is on that airship. Any questions?”

“Everything we need is on the airship?” Sage asked.

“Clothing, food, a map, directions, ammo, instructions, general info, prison blueprints, survival gear,” she specified.

“Pilot?” Scarlet inquired, worried.

“One of you.”

“What?” stammered Scarlet.

Unflinching, Pyrrha turned to stare at Neptune. Scarlet and Sage too looked to Neptune.

Neptune sighed and cursed under his breath. “I guess I've been volunteered.”

“Anything else?”

“No, I'm done here.” Pyrrha turned her back on the headmaster. 

“Good. Good luck, and... come back home my boys.” Yelette fell back into her chair, worry touching the creases in her face as she watched her former students salute disorderly and filed into the elevator. The doors began to close when she called out, “Pyrrha.”

The redhead's hand caught the closing doors, a single eye peeking through like an eagle's eye.

“I don't know who I just talked to, but I hope you two can work it out.” 

The doors closed, and Neptune nudged the huntress, “what was that about?”

“Nothing.”

Now long dark, the four liberators in intent followed Yelette's words and boarded the cargo ship where a feeble looking man directed them to a partially concealed craft. 

“It's got wings?” Neptune noted, mostly to himself.

The craft, small, angular and tan, was not standard transport fare, and instead had engines mounted on the inside of rotating wings rather than jets on the far outside. A ramp in the back allowed access to a six passenger cargo hold, three seats on starboard and port walls each, and a small door to the illuminated cockpit. In four of the seats were crates and bags with what they discovered to be exactly what Yelette told them ahead of time.

“Neptune, get this thing started,” commanded Pyrrha as she began digging into the supplies.

“I'm really not comfortable with the responsibility of flying with zero experience,” he grumbled, voicing his opinion that was promptly ignored. Ducking under the doorway, he sat in the black seat, finding it surprisingly comfy, and took stock. Before him was a instrument cluster fitted with many gauges, many switches, many buttons and half as many sticky notes with perfect, female handwriting littering the small space. Two horizontal levers sat in front of the cluster, and a book rested on a personal shelf to his left. 

Thumbing through the brown book, which was a manual to the craft, read like magic to Neptune, who grunted and relegated the book back to its shelf. Reading the sticky notes, he found one that read, 'this first', and flipping the red switch underneath it, lights turned on in the cargo hold, eliciting a “thank you” from Scarlet, who was helping the others look through their gear.

“Alright.” He followed the sticky notes around the cluster, checking dials and flipping switches until he hit the ignition key. “Remove tarp before star... hey! Scarlet! Could you peel the tarp off?” he half shouted behind him.

The windshield turned from pitch black to starless night black with the removal of the cover. With shaky fingers, Neptune turned the key. Turbines winded up, and flipping a secondary switch, fire lit the chambers.

Pyrrha sat herself on an empty seat, opening her own bag. Lifting the corners of her long skirt, she buttoned the corner hem to the small of her back, turning what amounted to a dress into a short skirt in front and a long triangle of leg covering in back, then pulled the shawl covering her right arm up and pinned it to her collar, turning the top into a half poncho. Her black tights and black turtle neck were revealed underneath, along with her short sleeve, double breasted jacket and red short shorts. Pulling from her bag, she slid into new yet familiar bronze greaves, reaching all the way from her mid thigh down to her feet. Then the bronze gauntlets and arm covering, but unlike her old outfit, Yelette had armor made for both arms, unlike the shoulder guard that went with it. The bronze shoulder guard, slim and sharp, fit over her shawl on her left side, her shield side, also where the fabric always concealed her arm. A brown leather and bronze corset meets cuirass fitted over her padded jacket, even more so similar to her old one. A black bullet sleeve fit over her right arm, and then her belt wrapped around her waist of course. Left justified on her front sat a large fist sized disc with Pyrrha's wheat emblem, behind one magazine pouch for her old rifle, two more on the other side, more bullet sleeves for her new rifle, and a short dagger along her back, curtesy of Yelette. From another bag, a long one, she pulled out three pieces which quickly formed into her rifle, seven other pieces formed her long spear slash rifle, then finally her shield. Both rifles fit on her back, the shield covering them, magazines filled her pouches, and four tremendously sized bullets, glimmering gold and copper, fit on her arm sleeve, another five on her belt. She was dressed. 

She sauntered into the cockpit, steps noticeably heavier, a map and booklet in hand. Neptune glanced over and jolted.

“Oh shit, I can't tell if you're cool or scary... maybe it's the scowl,” he mused, tapping a flickering gauge. 

Pyrrha plastered the map against a flat section of wall, which there was almost none of, and opened a tiny booklet. “We want to head east, bearing East by North East, 96 degrees. The book says not to worry about horizontal drift, we'll adjust once we fly over land.”

“There's my compass, alright, are they both in?” 

“Yeah.”

“Alright, I'm closing the hatch!” Neptune shouted behind him.

Sage and Scarlet saluted the old captain who watched them work, the ramp lifting to separate them. The old captain saluted back before turning to leave.

“Okay, okay, okay, relax Neptune, you got this.” His eyes darted between his instruments and a notepad to his left which contained lifting off instructions, flying, and landing. “First, uhm, I need to flip on the 'take off' switch.” Pyrrha pointed to it, Neptune nodding in appreciation. It was a covered switch, requiring him to lift a orange guard to flip it. Having done so he read aloud, “now ease onto the throttle, right peddle, and flip back the switch at fifty feet.” Much to his terror, the craft began to creak and lift as his foot eased the throttle downwards. Pyrrha braced herself against the chair and the map as the craft shuttered, while the other two strapped themselves in hastily. “Ha haha ha, oh shit, oh fuck, it's happening.” 

Pyrrha tapped the dial labeled 'elevation' stating, “we're above fifty,” then lowered the orange guard which flipped off the switch. The weight in the craft shifted along with angle as the jets burned harder while the wings leveled out, turning the ships lateral thrust into forward thrust. “Alright, we need to turn right now, what does it say? To turn, press the lever—”

“I've played video games Pyrrha, I know how to turn— oh shit!” He pressed his right lever forward and pulled his left back, freaking him out as the craft rolled left and he slid into the shelf. Pyrrha remained braced. “Wrong way, wrong way, wrong way, sorry, sorry sorry.” Rolling it the other way, he put the craft at a forty five and then pulled on both levers, steering the craft right and to the east.

“10, 30, 60, 90, level out, level out,” Pyrrha calmly instructed, “we need 96, you need 2 more degrees, gentle. See? You got this Neptune,” she said, patted his shoulder, “now you just need your seatbelt.” She left Neptune, tense like a spring loaded trap and sucked into the back of his seat, alone, and greeted the other two in the cargo bay. “We're good.”

The Bullpup shuttered, frigid air providing turbulence. Ruby shivered herself awake. Adjusting her sunglasses and sitting up, she examined her gloved hand. When she had first taken off the bandages from her head, the light of day blinded her maladjusted eyes, and sunglasses were immediately issued for her. Once her eyes could open without fear, it was all she could do to gawk at her hand, close one eyelid at a time, go cross eyed, and play with her depth perception in general. She would've been surprised if she hadn't teared up, though, for the first time, she noticed they only came from her original eye.

Looking around now however was a different vibe altogether, hope and joy mostly absent from the room. 

Ruby had been assigned sharpshooter for Vale's First Division, Second Squad, Ruby as ninth position under the leadership of Sergeant Dusk Gaz. Currently, she flew with her squad over foreign seas on the brink of the new morning, a battle drawing near. Standing up, she grabbed one of the straps dangling from the ceiling, letting her keep her balance like every one else. 

She repeated information in her head, a mantra of order she wasn't used to, for a impeding situation of chaos to ensue. Team, rank, callsign, task. Fire Team One, Sergeant Dusk, rifleman, Corporal Fang, sharpshooter, Lieutenant Two Face, medic, Corporal X, CQC specialist. Fire Team Two, Corporal Cry, rifleman, Corporal Cat, rifleman, Corporal Blank, Pyrotechnical specialist, Corporal Smiley, CQC specialist, and lastly, Non-Commissioned Soldier Thorn, sharpshooter. Dusk decided her callsign.

Each of the soldiers wore a full helmet like that of the Atlesian soldiers with a screen on the inside, except like their fatigues and body armor, the helmet was black and grey and had no open mouth. And on these black helmets, the soldier's namesake callsign was engraved in white markings upon the front. Again, each soldier, in order; a skull, fangs, a two-face, an X, tears, cat face, blank expression, a smile. Ruby pulled off her sunglasses, tucked them into a breast pocket, and lifted her helmet from the floor, mounting it upon her head. Vines of thorns wrapped the helmet's lower half like barb wire.

“Twelve o'clock friends” Dusk spoke casually, each helmet replicating his voice through its built in head set, as long as they were within 15 feet of each other. Pass that, the head set must be manually activated via button under the chin. “The grace period has ended, our war time actions are now recognized as legal in the world's eyes. They just won't like it.” With the way he finished speaking, Ruby couldn't tell if he was expressing excitement or sorrow. Or both.

The mission was simple. Vale wanted a landing point on the Mistral continent, and Mistral was going to be more than aware of this. Platoons had been dispersed all along the western coastline, and it was Second and Third squad's job to airdrop and clear a landing zone for the incoming invading force. 18 people were in charge of clearing a fishing village, their advantage lying in that Mistral didn't know where Vale will land, thus their forces would be thin. 5 minutes to route the enemy before reinforcements arrive, clear a path for the other squads to clear the local area.

The Bullpup's side doors opened up and the ship slowed down so it could fly side ways, though the freezing air still raced past them plenty fast. The sky was black, the only lights in the world coming from what looked like a fishing village down below. 

Dusk started shouting, even if it was unnecessary with the headsets, “commence operation Stolen Pillar, route the defending enemy forces, on my lead, go!” And with that, he took three steps backwards, falling backwards on the third step, arms spread and fall underway.

Loyal and obedient, each trooper followed suit, with the last one out being Ruby. She clenched tight to her military issued sniper rifle, Crescent Rose on her hip, and wobbled towards the edge. Her rapid, panicked breathing was deafening in her own helmet, and despite all her efforts, she couldn't fathom why she was reacting so. The last time she had any similar degree of reaction had to have been when she first fought Grimm, but that was so long ago. She only knew that she was afraid to go, to jump, and to fight. 

A rogue torrent of wind roared past her.

Falling unceremoniously, she flipped head over feet time and time again, preemptively pulling her parachute cord ahead of schedule. Gunshots rang through the air, other soldiers flew past her, some nearly hitting Ruby on their descent. Large black circles blotted out the lights below her, meaning the squad was almost at the ground level in the Village. 

The village was small. A muddy road ran parallel to the shore, and about a dozen buildings plus a bell tower sat on either side of it. Small white boats littered a single dock, starkly contrasting in their sophistication with the thatch and cobblestone construction of the town. 

Fumbling with her hands, she barely managed to switched off the safety on her rifle, then drew back the bolt, loading in the first round. Flying projectiles whizzed past her, and then as if acting in balance, the wind started rushing past her faster than before. Looking up she could make out tears growing in her chute, and her fall accelerated.

The ground grew closer and closer, until finally, Ruby hit the ground, knees buckling and body crumpling.

Dusk's voice came through the radio. “Fang, overwatch on the south hill.”

The regular chaos waged around her, but that didn't matter at the moment. Coughing, the wind knocked out of her, and clenching her shins, she mumbled to herself. “You've fallen farther, you've fallen harder,” she spoke in third person, “what's wrong with you?” Rolling over she patted her chest, struggling to breathe smoothly. “What's wrong with you?!” she repeated.

X ran up to Ruby, shotgun in one hand and with the other dragged the fallen girl by the armpit across the muddy street towards the water. He just about ran Ruby over a waist high rock wall, then propped her in a corner where she was hidden from sight. Two Face who was firing into the fray ducked down right next to Ruby, wasting no time to look over the possibly injured girl.

More commands, “X and Smiley, vent that house.”

Cat flew over the short wall and into a slide, taking Two Face's covering fire position, Smiley close behind. X patted smiley on the shoulder, “on me!” he shouted. Craning her neck, she watched them hop over the wall and kicked in the thatched door of a adjacent house, shotguns pumping rounds. 

Two Face pulled up Ruby's pant legs and pulled down her tall socks, checking her legs for injury. “Leg's fine!” he stated. He abruptly started patting her chest and waist, then shifted her forward to look at her back too. Yanking her helmet off, he pried her jaw open and flashed a light into her mouth, Ruby still coughing and now gagging. Before she knew it, her helmet was shoved back on and Two Face grabbed his rifle. “The wind was knocked out of you, you're fine, you're not shot or bleeding!” He pressed the bottom of his helmet, “Sir she's fine.”

Down the street from where Ruby landed, a black painted Atlesian Paladin with four parachutes stomped down, mud splattering all around him. He was Squad Three's ninth member. The bastards.

Marching forward and dragging the chutes behind it, the mech laid down a row of bullets, shredding the lane of houses opposite the shore along with the bell tower. 

Fang spoke over the radio tower this time. “Tank! South of the tower!”

Ruby, Cat, and Two Face peeked over the wall to see the supposed tank, but only saw the Paladin turn and start down the road. Gunfire erupted from the building to the left of the tower, bouncing off the rocks and scaring the three back into hiding. 

“Disengage Paladin,” Dusk shouted, “disengage!”

“Where is it?” the pilot asked, confused.

An unfamiliar voice shouted over the headset, “fire!”

The haystack that sat in front of the stable blew up into a cloud of yellow specks, a wave of suddenly liquid water behind it, and the glass of the adjacent buildings shattered more then they already were. The upper shoulder of the paladin exploded like glass as the whole structure flew backwards, sliding past just a few steps from where Ruby and the others took cover. 

“Shit!” exclaimed Two Face, reaching for the computer glove he wore on his left hand. “They're using the same radio frequency as us, time to change it.” 

“Two Face, tank's targe—” Fang started before his radio cut out.

Cat stood up and broke into a sprint, shouting “it's looking at us!”

Cursing, Two Face hastily finished pressing buttons on his wrist and grabbed Ruby by her own wrist, yanking her to her feet and following Cat south. Gunfire started again, prompting the medic to scream “Sir!”

“X, cover fire, Cry, take tank” commanded Dusk.

Ruby, still distraught and limping behind the medic, regardless of her past experience, found a simple admiration in the number of successful strategic actions taken in a brief moment. Within five seconds, all of the following happened.

X and Smiley opened fire on the building filled with Mistral soldiers, pushing them into cover. The tank turret rotated towards X and Smiley as it pulled forward. Bullets flied out from the building again, except this time, the Mistral soldiers were ejected from the holes in the walls and windows, Dusk and Squad Three charging through with axes, swords, and shovels, their weapons drawn on the downed but not dead hostiles. Cry popped out from down the street and sprinted at the tank, a man lifting the turret hatch to shoot the runner. Fang's rifle crackled, pegging the tank man in the shoulder and falling inside. Cry ran onto the tank and dropped a flash bang into the now still tank, jumping in after the blast. He then jumped out, giving a thumbs up.

Two Face stopped dragging Ruby and almost dropped her in the process. He ran over to his lower-rank-yet-still-commanding officer, informing him, “I had to change our frequency, they were listening by accident I think.”

“That's unfortunate.” The man touched his chin, “Cat and Thorn, I want you on the north hill. Cry, join Fang. Any visuals on hostiles?”

“I got a runner heading east” sounded off Blank. 

“Alright, Squad Three, fan east.” The men surrounding Dusk dispersed while he pulled a short revolver from his leg pocket and pointed upwards, launching a pink flare into the dark sky. “Why aren't you helping the Paladin Pilot?” he asked his medic, gesturing towards the flaming pile of twisted metal. The medic cursed and ran. 

Off the shore, high in the sky, Dusk spotted dozens of little black dots grow bigger as they got closer. The Vale offensive line. 

Looking to his right, Ruby limped past him, supported by Cat. 

A sigh. “We're going to have a talk later, Ms. Rose,” his voice heavy.

-End Chapter 5-


	6. Rising Counteraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used “Decimate” in the original definition, which is to 'destroy by a tenth'. When troop motivation was low, Roman centurions would line up their soldiers and kill every tenth man to scare them into motivation. This is the origin of the word decimate.

The elongated hull of the Bullhead groaned under the stress of a full load, the motley crew known as Ranger company huddled around Jaune and Ren, most of them feigning interest, but all of them watched the two boy's activity with rapt attention. The hum of jets and wind filled the background.

“Go- go ahead, try again” Ren mumbled, his thumb held out on the inside of Jaune's palm.

The blond adjusted his grip on Ren's Storm Flower, and traced the blade's edge across the center of the other's thumb. A faint pink pulsing illuminated the skin, the blade unable to cut as intended. “Naw, it's not working, theoretically maybe, but I don't...” 

Ren shook his head slightly, “just try again, focus. We should've been attempting this far sooner.”

“All right.” Shuffling in place, Jaune instead aimed the edge at his own skin, wincing as a thin red line appeared in his palm. “Ah, shit,” he muttered.

“Dumbass,” commented Cardin, others laughing in turn.

Closing his eyes, Jaune imagined the edge as a danger, an implement not wielded by him, a foreign object. Trying once more, the green blade ran the length of his palm, but this time, no cut emerged.

Gasps ensued, Cardin raised an impressed brow. Harumi of team BNSH stuttered, something uncharacteristic of her, “but when why that— how what?” Drawing her own sword a couple inches from it's sheathe, she ran a finger nail against the blade. A white mark showed the blade had in fact cut her, and the confusion ran deeper.

In the corner, Qrow nodded in improvement. Rapping his knuckles against the wall he leaned on, he shouted, “how you holding up Yang?” Ecstatic giggles emitted from the cockpit, a brand new pilot trainee Yang too happy to respond with words.

“Perfect,” nodded Ren, “now do the opposite to me.”

Returning to formation, the one boy lined the dagger against the skin of the other, and focused. Eyes closed, Jaune pictured the setup in his mind. The blade was an extension of him, and so he reached his senses out to the point of pressure against the dagger. He knew that Ren's aura was acting like a wall against the sharp edge infused with Jaune's own aura, so he pictured a pink electrical bubble as Ren's thumb, and the blade as a yellow line. Again and again in his mind, he pressed the yellow line into the bubble, but the bubble crackled quietly each time, pressing the yellow line back. Each time, Ren's thumb quivered for an instant, though Jaune never physically pressed the blade harder. Getting frustrated, the line in his mind grew in size and unsteady, ramming against the pink bubble and left the blade, similar to if Jaune had thrown a rock against a wall in anger. Except, when the line left the blade, it reshaped against the bubble and exploded.

Yellow and pink sparks shot out from the two boy's hands, prompting everyone surrounding them to jolt back in surprise. Not missing a moment, Jaune gently poked Ren's thumb, a droplet of blood accompanying a quiet “ow.” Everyone watched in shock as what looked like pink static encroached on the center of his thumb a moment later, a smooth static forming not unlike several smaller bubbles reforming into one larger, single bubble.

Everyone began shouting and hollering, Jaune and Ren among them. Even Weiss laughed as she clapped, her mind blown.

“Wait wait wait waitwaitwait, Qrow!” the knight spoke rapidly, shushing his peers all the while so he could hopefully hear his elder. “Qrow! Do you know anything about this? Aura manipulation? Cutting through it, anything?”

Qrow shrugged. “First, I gotta say I'm impressed. From what I've heard, you didn't even know what aura was when you first got to Beacon, now you're learning advanced tricks.”

Laughing ensued. One of the guys on the older (former Beacon) team slapping the back of Jaune's head head playfully, his bangs resetting to fall over his eyes. “Fucking Jaune” he chortled, “how'd you not know what aura was?”

Proudly chuckling through a wide grin, Jaune honestly answered “I have no idea, I never recall hearing about it before Beacon.”

“It's simple really,” Qrow started in his raspy voice, “aura is like a manual car. An surprising minority of people don't know what one is, the majority do. Of that majority, a fraction can use one, or use it, but only with training or help. Of that fraction, a much smaller fraction can do it well, and even fewer understand it deeply. In one case, few understand a car in its entirety to design and make one from scratch, and in the other, few understand aura enough to get certain desired effects, especially in the heat of battle.”

“Can you do something like that, Qrow?” spoke up a stray girl's high pitched voice.

He shrugged again, shooting them a dirty look, “I'd have to really want to kill them. The real trick is pulling it off in a fight. Most people just can't do it.”

The momentum in the ship shifted around, and before Jaune could ask more, the doors slid open and the ship turned to give them a clear jump into the fishing village's center. Following Qrow's lead, Ranger company fell down the twenty feet into mud.

The sun had just risen over the horizon, and a decimated cottage town sat surrounded by burning woods and soldiers pitching tents. Black smoke billowed above the roaring flames, the crackling of trees and vast movements of air audible for miles. Down the single street they saw a tank with a black clad trooper leaned over the hatch shouting questions, and across the street from it sat the wreckage of a Atlesian Paladin, cut open and a blood trail leading from the cockpit to behind the closest building. Continuous drop ships deployed supplies and people where ever they could, squads filing into the burning woods in all directions with frenzied urgency.

“Why are the woods on fire?” Weiss asked aloud. Flashbacks to their entrance exam where she and Ruby set a tree on fire by accident lit behind her eyes, a grin flashing across her face.

Ren cleared his throat. “They need a landing zone I believe.”

“That's right kiddos,” Qrow confirmed. “Cruisers will be landing tonight, and we need a space to land them and any artillery not shooting us or the ships.” He began a hurried stride towards the soldiers pitching tents more inland, the former students of Beacon in tow.

“Qrow!” called out Dusk, head of second squad, “finally, you're here.”

The grizzled and dirty young man lowered a clip board he was writing on, taking large steps to meet the Huntsmen while his helmet, attached by a carabiner, bounced off his hip. 

“Dusk, you're setting house?” His tone blended friendly mockery and seriousness, something the soldier appreciated.

A nod. Behind him, Ruby appeared from inside a tent, catching her friends attention. They ran to her. “This is our downtime,” Dusk replied, “the other squads are moving down the coast, and we have forward scout teams going inland.”

“Ruby!” exclaimed the heiress, dashing into a hug with the other young girl. “I'm glad you're okay. We had honestly no idea what could've happened here!”

Nora offered a fist bump that Ruby honored around Weiss' back. “That's an odd thing to say,” she scoffed, “as long as she didn't encounter another huntsmen, everything should've been smooth sailing.”

“It could've gone smoother” she confessed solemnly. Frowns spread quickly, somewhat intimidating Ruby. “No, I mean, we only lost a guy, but I just wasn't... in the game.”

Jaune squinted, slowly explaining, “I don't know whether or not one guy is a bad thing or an okay thing.” He chuckled soon after though, “I'm sorry, I still find your sunglasses funny,” he stated, pointing at her aviators, “remind me of Yang.”

She shyly smiled under their gazes, rubbing a heel into the ground as she turned to the side. “I don't have to wear them now my eyes have had a chance to adjust, but... I'm kind of liking the style. Speaking of which, where's Yang?”

“She's landing a Bullhead somewhere, if she's not crashing it” half spat Weiss.

Ruby took a step back. “She's flying?”

“Yeah, scary” agreed Ren.

“Well lucky for you,” Qrow sighed, “the Major in charge really doesn't trust us, so we're here to play house too. He's sort of fighting my requests,” he sighed again, striking a stubborn pose.

Dusk nodded. “Well, I hope you have luck with that soon.”

“Yeah.” They chewed their tongues, thinking. “How'd this morning go?”

“Our jackass Paladin pilot got juicified by a tank, Atlesian yahoo. Otherwise, we only had to kill three men, the rest are quartered in that barn over there getting treated by Hese,” he finished, pointing to said barn.

“Wow, how calloused,” the huntsmen responded passionlessly, “got the food to feed them?”

“Don't know yet. Just know that after the next few tents, we have a shower system to raise.” Dusk handed his clip board to the older man, a yellow notepad with a rough sketch of the area dotted with notes and layout instructions. “Here you go, I'll be back. Ruby! Come with me!” he shouted while strutting off.

Ruby's friends gave her a worried look, yet all she could do was shrugged with equal concern.

On the other side of the world, east of Vacuo in the midst of a White Fang settlement, inside a broken water pump shack just off the runway, Sun stepped in and handed a seated Blake a cold glass of water, condensation dripping off the side.

“Thank you” she spoke, voice hoarse.

Sun took a stool on the other side of a radio they had set up, picking up a notebook as he sat. “Batteries good?” he asked.

“Yeah, changed them last night.” Static emitted from the blue walkie talkies, Blake too situating her paper on her lap. 

In the last week, Blake had figured out that the antlered White Fang recruiter lady preferred to have her discussions with Roman and other 'managers' early in the morning before daily chores and training inside the top floor of the previously abandoned saloon. Believing that they might be able to discover pertinent information, they hid a two way radio behind assorted jars on a unimposing shelf, and kept the other radio in the broken water pump shack. Because of its distance from the rest of camp and how hot it would get in there, Blake and Sun were assured privacy for the early hours.

Foot steps barely registered through the radio, a female voice mumbled to itself. “I don't think she's with Roman this time,” commented Sun.

Though it was a two way radio, they could talk freely without worry of the radio on the other side reproducing their sounds, as Sun had figured out how to break the circuit that received them on their shack radio. Ironically, it was easier to find a two way radio and tamper with its solders instead of finding a rubber band strong enough to hold the send button on a normal walkie talkie.

“Roman, that you?” the woman's voice came through in static.

“Yeah,” returned the criminal's unique sound, doubly under the static effect.

Blake looked to Sun, whom shared beads of sweat already from the heated and cramped space. “Is he on speaker?”

Sure enough, in the top floor of the saloon, the doe lady sat at an empty table where a garish orange scroll laid expanded and on. “Where are you?” she asked, sounding annoyed.

“In town, why my darling,” chirped Roman back.

“Today's agenda...”

Sun groaned. “Son of a bitch,” he flipped through the previous pages in his book, scrutinizing the data he had down, “more schedule confirmations and supply logistics.”

Blake shook her head in bitter agreement, “yep, nothing scandalous yet.”

“Yeah, when do we find out that Roman doesn't brush his teeth?” he joked.

“Or that he picks his nose,” she snarked.

“Woah there, stop the presses, notorious criminal picks his nose, heinous indeed.”

Not far to the west, at the border of Vacuo walked Pyrrha and her compatriots. Step after step in the sand, they left a long and straight trial leading back to a half buried and crash landed airship, curtesy of Neptune. As they walked towards the city, the sand turned to dirt.

“I don't know which is worse,” Scarlet panted, coat over his shoulder and two backpacks dragging behind him, “the fact that Neptune crashed or that he couldn't crash us closer; the heat is killing me.”

Stripped similar to Scarlet behind him, Sage's coat was wrapped around his sword which sat atop of a crate he dragged along the ground. “It's not too terrible.” He looked up and at the rising sun, its rays lighting up the tears of sweat on his bare torso. “Could be hotter.”

“Could have more gear,” groaned Pyrrha, next in marching order, her armor and cloak far too hot to even consider carrying on her body. Two heavy duffel bags filled with clothes dragged along in the sand, only a black tang top and her crimson dress bottom upon her body. She had begun considering that her dress skirt might more appropriately be called a sarong, and though normally it's wool and cotton blend would be too warm to wear in hot climates, the openness of the bottom provided enough air flow to be tolerable. This didn't stop her from regretting wearing clothes altogether however.

“Pfft,” interjected Neptune who lead the pack, “at least you're not wearing jeans.” His red jacket, black tie, and olive green ruck sack dangled from his polearm slung over his shoulder, his white button up shirt undone in a fashion identical to his friend's, Sun.

Scarlet thought out loud, “now, when you die from the heat, is it your body dying from heat or is it your body committing suicide?”

Neptune cackled while Sage retorted playfully, “that's a stupid freaking question. What is that even supposed to mean?” 

“Well,” the male redhead clarified, “maybe, in one case, you die 'cause your body cooks and is killed, and in the other, your body, it's— it's like... 'hey, I don't wanna... you know, be so hot' so it like... commits suicide to avoid the pain, you know?”

“Dehydration puts your body into shock, brain cooks, brain death,” Pyrrha soberly explained, squinting to see into the distance, sun blinding her otherwise. She could see the beige desert city of Vacuo several miles away. “Hey Neptune, what does the book say?”

“Outskirts, a house with a green flag, better map, water, and a truck,” Neptune answered, certain for a moment before he pulled out the book from the ruck sack, then confirmed what he said. “We're looking for a house and garage with a green flag. Should be one of the first houses if we're approaching from the right direction. It says we might meet someone, not guaranteed though.”

On and on they walked, though only twenty minutes had passed when they stumbled upon the exact house they were looking for, though calling it a house was generous. An RV stood chained to a lonely tree, a converted dune buggy with a truck bed beside it. More trailers dotted the dirt plains towards Vacuo, this trailer remaining the farthest away.

“I'll look inside for supplies,” offered Pyrrha, letting go of her gear and entering the RV before anyone could object. Inside was empty, with only a folded map and a case of water bottles sitting on cheap countertops. Tearing a hole in the case, Pyrrha downed a water bottle and set the plastic bottle in the sink. Sated, she took both items and headed back outside. “Got the map,” she said.

“Who's driving,” asked Scarlet, throwing his backpacks in the back along with Sage's crate and giant sword.

Pyrrha and Sage stared at Neptune. It took a moment for him to realize their gazes. “No,” he moaned, “I just finished flying, I'm still shaking from the crash landing I had to do.”

“Oh! I'll drive,” the swashbuckler volunteered. 

A moment of silence passed where the other three traded questionable looks. They finally all echoed “sure.”

“Sweet!”

The truck essentially amounted to a body frame with a roll cage and running board that had a truck bed mounted on, with the necessary components of seats, suspension, engine, wheels and steering. No windshield, doors, belt buckles, or car body save the floor were to be had. With it, Neptune and Pyrrha sat in the back seat, Neptune tying his jacket, tie, and ruck sack to the roll cage bars above him, providing him a modicum of shade. Pyrrha secured one duffel likewise with its own straps, and stuffed the other one under the seat. He laid his polearm across his lap while Pyrrha kept only her diphos, Milo. To keep the suspension balanced, Sage kept his sword in back with Scarlet's packs, several strapped down cans of gas, and sand tires, and just threw his coat around the bars. 

Bouncing with excitement, the palest of the boys found the keys under his rear, and shoved the brass shiv into the steering column, the engine roaring to life. 

Pulling out a compass and grabbing the map from Pyrrha's hands, Neptune stated, “from what I can tell, we can follow a road east from Vacuo to the next supply stop a ways from here. So uhm...” he examined the map more deeply, continuing, “yeah, just drive towards Vacuo, go around the right side, counter clockwise, and I'll tell you when we hit the right road.”

“Right, here we go!” Scarlet slammed his foot down on the gas, spinning all four wheels in place before the buggy eventually rocketed off, its driver shouting in glee all the way.

Neptune gave a side glance to Pyrrha. “At least it's an automatic. He's never driven before!”

She propped her foot against the door frame, a slight bump throwing her up higher than she liked. “Say, Neptune, aren't you afraid of water?” she asked, feeling the question a little awkward and so looked away to avoid her own embarrassment.

He grimaced, “Yeah, why?” now nibbling at his lip.

“I was just thinking... not only were you flying for the first time, something we were all admittedly freaked out by, but... you flew us over the ocean too. I think I understand why you were so panicked from start to finish. It is a phobia, right?”

Rubbing his nose, he agreed, “of the water? Yes.”

“I have a new found respect for you, good work.”

As she was still looking away, he couldn't see her eyes darting around wildly, awkwardly. “Problem is, praise from you is hard to take at face value. I can't tell if you're being nice or if you mean it.”

She flashed a smile towards him. “Why can't it be both?” Letting the moment sink in and watching the city in the distance grow slightly closer, she continued, with caution, “were you always afraid of the water?”

This time, he rubbed his gloved hands together, the abrasive sound blending in with Scarlet's arbitrary braking and skidding. “Nope. I use to swim.”

“What happened?” Pyrrha asked the obvious.

“Almost drowned. Twice.” He emphasized the second statement and held up two fingers, chuckling at the memories. A long sigh. Hunching over, he explained, “first time, I was in the shallow waters of a beach by Mistral, alone, like an idiot. I lost my floaty, and got too tired to swim. When I sank to the bottom, I barely managed to grab a stick and pushed myself up to air. I got closer to shore, but the tide came in and messed me up, almost drowned, blacked out, some guy pulled me out. When I was enrolled into a combat school, that incident was the reason I made a polearm, plus always carrying a pair of goggles,” he said while tapping the yellow lens on his head. “Then, a second time, during training I was knocked into a lake. My trident shocked me and I went stiff, swallowed a lot of water. Sun pulled me out that time.”

“Gave him CPR too!” laughed Scarlet.

Neptune shook his head sideways, smiling. “Nope. That was the teacher. She kissed me. Didn't regret that part at all.”

“Sorry.” Pyrrha frowned, looking away again.

“Really the only part I regret though is the phobia. I owe my friendships and personal style to it all, but I just wish I wasn't so vulnerable to the fear...”

Dusk marched to the hill top where he waited for Ruby to catch up. Once there, she noticed the sharpshooter Fang sitting in the large oak next to where Dusk stood. “You wanted to talk to me sir?” she asked, approaching his back.

Suddenly, he turned and stared down at Ruby, his features tense. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he held back his voice, but Ruby could feel his heat.

“Sir?” she squeaked, shocked. She glanced to Fang, but he kept vigilant watch with a pair of binoculars, scanning the burning forests and its roaring flames.

“I saw you tear through men when the military and Beacon made the joint attack on that hidden base, I saw you tear through students in two tournaments, I read the papers when you took out that fox spy kid,” he raged quickly and quietly, gaze beating on Ruby. “I trust Ozpin and I trusted you,” his finger jabbed at her collar bone. “I chose you. They gave us the option to take you, and I did, because unlike some of the others, I don't believe the bullshit they're spewing about you guys.” 

He stepped back, turned around and started pacing. He went on, “long story short, I know you are a fighter in a league beyond most of us, yet somehow, somehow,” he repeated, “you froze up in your first deployment. Completely.” He threw his hands into the air, “why?”

Only now did Ruby really pay attention to his face, his rugged features sharp, reminiscent to a younger Qrow were his jawline slightly wider. Because of that, his angry glare held that much more menace and weight, and for once, Ruby felt inexplicably ashamed of her petite frame, dwarfed in demeanor by this man. Worse still, she couldn't give him an answer. While she knew how she felt, and some underlying reasons for it, she couldn't give him an answer that would satisfy him, to explain why she acted how she did. She was trapped.

Silence ensued, and Ruby focused on the grass at her feet, thankful that her sunglasses could hide her just a little. Dusk let out a frustrated sigh.

“Is there something I should know?” He spoke calmly now, a hand held a waist level in an offering gesture, “is there something we don't know that will help this? Because, I can't have someone risk my men in the next fight because we need to babysit them while completing the mission. Could you at least provide cover fire, or at least use your speed to scout? I thought I understood what you meant when you told me,” he said, pointing to himself then to her lower half, “you told me you weren't going to be able to use your scythe.” 

She jolted, ever so faintly but she did. Though she didn't carry her red hood, her silver rose, her various pouches and bandoliers, and instead wore the standard grey cargo pants and black tank top, she still carried her Crescent Rose on her hip along her military issued folded sniper rifle. 

“I interpreted it as you taking mercy on your fellow man, that you wouldn't be able to use it to the best of your abilities against people you know are just fighting for their kingdom. I didn't realize you had got broken somewhere in the assembly lines.”

She stepped forward. “You're right sir. Before I got to you, I saw things no one should've ever scene. Perhaps I sound over dramatic, but, there are people would say differently, that is if the dead could talk.”

“I understand that but—“

“But, sir, I'm sorry.” She looked up, but not at him, and remained quiet. “I never intended to put your soldiers in harm, you even lost the man from Atlas, and I may have been able to help were I not helpless. But, I can only hope I do my part better next time. I'm sorry.”

“Okay.” Dusk scratched his stubble, easing up as he did so. “You're dismissed.”

“But I feel I should warn you sir,” Ruby added, pulling off her glasses to look him in the eye, “there are things we don't know about hiding in the dark, and there are a lot of woods in between here and Mistral. You need to make sure you keep a look out as much as I am, for you and for your men.”

“Huh,” Dusk huffed, “interesting.”

She raised a brow. “Well, I guess that's a way of describing it—“

“No,” he said, “well, that too, but, I always heard you had silver eyes.”

“And?”

“Well I'm just now seeing that they're not.”

Ruby paused. “What?”

“Up close, they're not silver. Maybe grey blue, but... no, actually, just very blue, if a little light.”

She pawed at her new eye. “Did they give me a blue eye?”

“Technically yes, but so is the other one. I don't get why you're surprised though.”

“No, it should be silver,” Ruby argued, voice rising.

Dusk turned to the tree, shouting, “Fang! Look here, what color is her eyes?”

The man in the tree craned his head, binoculars pressed against his face still. An aged voice called back, “sky blue el capitan.” 

Now unnerved, Ruby bolted from the hill top, and ran for the house by the water. She ran past her friends who were ready with questions, and as she touched upon her semblance for more speed, her new eye ached vaguely. Bursting through the door, she stumbled her way into a bathroom where she looked in a mirror for the first time since before everything started over a month ago.

She was confronted by a stranger with sky blue eyes.

“What do you mean we have a food problem?” Roman scoffed. 

The criminal and his partner, Neo, sat on either side of a glass table located on the roof of a building in Vacuo city. Peering over the ledge, Roman could see the busy streets packed with people flow like crossing tides, loud and cacophonous. Roman enjoyed that kind of scene. In the shade of their umbrella, they drank their coffee, at bliss with the weather. 

Perry, dressed in regular clothes with his round glasses being his only constant feature, looked over to Roman from by the other corner of the roof. “Food problem?”

“Yes, eventually at least,” crackled a female voice from his scroll, on speaker and on the table. 

“That's new,” commented Sun, Blake and him still listening to the doe lady's scroll conversation. “It'd suck to starve.”

Blake shrugged. “I don't we'll have to worry too much.” She wasn't concerned.

“Yes, I ran some numbers,” the doe lady elucidated, “we have roughly a tenth more people recruited than expected, the next shipment is not going to be enough to keep everyone happy.”

Roman smiled at Neo, sipping his coffee. “No problems Estavas, only solutions. What do you have in mind?”

Neither party listening in could see the lady rub her brow as she listed her ideas, “well, a, you could steal some from the local farms, b, we could send some of our misfits to work in town, earn some money and food while they're at it, split the difference, or...”

“Or?” asked the ginger.

The lady remained silent for another long moment. “eh, longer term, but, starting our own farms. It's not going to help us at the moment, so we'll talk about it later.”

Sun laughed. Blake raised a brow. “What?”

He turned a little red, and went somewhat giggly. “I was just thinking, that wouldn't be too bad. I just imagined you in a straw hat, overalls, nothing underneath. Nice picture.” It was her turn to blush.

“I like the 'me stealing stuff' plan, sounds fun!” Roman chirped.

“Or we could do both.”

“That too. I don't care who you send, but you know that one ugly guy in camp?”

“Timothy, Thomas, something like that, the one without a neck?”

“Yeah, him, get him out, I think he makes Neo uncomfortable.” Neo playfully scowled at her partner. “And I'm not saying it's not possible that he might possibly make me uncomfortable too. Just saying. Though, I guess that's what you get when you're raised in a barn.”

Perry, the doe lady, Sun, and Blake responded in unison with a mild “wow.”

“Speaking of which,” continued the lady, “is your babysitter with you? The tall, dark, and scary one? How does he wear all that black...”

“Nope!”

“Great, that means he's here. Probably with the new people Salem sent last night then.”

Sun and Blake looked to each other. Puzzled, the black haired faunus asked, “what shipment of people came in recently? Who's Salem?”

Flipping through several pages of notes, Sun replied with uncertainty, “I don't know, I think we missed a conversation.”

“Any one I have to worry about? I know they sent down Geppetto's project, any converts too?” Roman spoke, unease audible.

“A couple, but there are some mercenaries too. One told me to tell you that Jack sends his regards. Anyways, Salem told me to start choosing loyal white fang members as candidates to send north. I asked if I could go, I'm thinking I'm pretty loyal, and I'd get to see what our home base looks like, but she said to keep doing good work down here. Know what that's about?” she explained in monotone.

“Well you're doing such a good job, obviously my dear.” As per usual for the man, sincerity did not come clean, and what he said walked a fine line between mockery and shallow flattery. “Besides, you can't convert the converted.”

“Why won't you ever tell me what it's like up there?”

“I shan't think of my memories there,” Roman hollered theatrically, “the room service put my whites in with a dark load. Simply dreadful!”

“Trying to get a straight answer out of you is like trying to get Neo to talk,” she mumbled.

“Tsk tsk tsk,” he sounded, “don't be rude Estavas.” 

“Did you get all of that?” Blake implored her lucrative friend. 

“Geppett something project, candidates for conversion, Salem, and a definite home base?” he listed off from his notebook.

She looked over her own scrawls, then asked, “are you sure conversion is really anything important? That's the whole point of recruiting.”

“No, you see,” he started, leaning forward, “Estavas said that this Salem person asked for candidates for something conversion related, but they have to be loyal to the cause already, so I'm thinking there's more to it.”

“Like what? A group of extreme extremists?” she thought skeptically, a typical reaction that Sun had been long use to.

“Maybe, maybe a private force, maybe elite training?” he postulated, hand twirling upwards.

“It just proves we're on to something though,” extrapolated Blake. “This is the first time we're hearing about these things, and...” she thought for a moment, “Roman avoided questions about the... White Fang HQ I guess? He's hiding information from her, and I feel that we might not get much deeper listening to her.”

“But wait,” he retorted, “maybe we could get lucky, what if he decides to explain things to her, and by proxy, extension, us?”

“The tall man in black though...”

“Maybe he's a convert? Or someone from HQ if he's babysitting Roman as she says.”

“No, I was going to say...” she paused, the weight of the situation eking up on her, “we don't know his name, she doesn't either, and for all we know, neither does Roman. I haven't heard him talk once since we first saw him. He scares me honestly, and something makes me think there's a pact of secrecy here.”

“Neo doesn't talk though,” Sun argued, “I mean, she's a mute, I think,” he added off hand, “what if he's the same?”

Blake tapped at her jaw. “I'm thinking Sun, that we need to kidnap a pilot,” she said, looking him in the eye at the last word.

“What? Wait, oh...” It dawned on Sun.

“We have coordinates of whenever they set up air ship... shipments, air traffic lanes, times, but whenever something comes from the north, Estavas never mentions anything specific—“

“Probably because she doesn't know—“

“Exactly,” agreed Blake with an unusual amount of excitement, “she is informed of the flights, but she never arranges them. So, they must be using pilots from HQ who know the flight path—“

Sun's face went from ecstatic revelation to sudden dejectedness, adding, “which means they trust them enough with that information, they must be 'loyal' enough,” he said with air quotes, “that they don't fear too much them falling into enemy hands... maybe. And if they're anything like Roman's babysitter...” he stopped there, shrugging with a fatalistic attitude.

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“If we want to know where their HQ is, we'll have to go with their consent.”

“Or torture a pilot,” theorized Sun. Blake nodded in somber concurrence.

“Hey Roman!” Perry shouted, a monocle lifted to his eye. He was scanning the eastern plains of Vacuo when he noticed a buggy bouncing along, a flare of red piquing his interest. “Come look at this.”

Roman excused himself from the table, bowing to Neo as he did so, “one second dear.”

“What are—“ the scroll barked, but was cut off.

“I wasn't talking to you Estavas. Perry, what's up?”

He handed the monocle to Roman. “Call me crazy, but that looks like Pyrrha Nikos right? It can't be good if she's here, right?”

Roman groaned. “Call me crazy, but I agree.” He followed a long dust trail with the scope to a stripped jeep truck springing along a road outside of the city limits. There was a red head driving it, and a blue haired passenger behind him, but it was what was hidden behind the blue haired passenger that put a pit in Roman's stomach. Flowing red hair trailed in the wind, crimson clothing peaking through, and that hefty upper body stature Roman respected. “Probably.”

“We should tell them, right?”

A long sigh. “Probably.”

Striding back to the glass table, Roman picked up his scroll, turned off the speaker, and spoke directly into it, voice void of its usual jaunt. “Estavas, we have a high priority target plus three non descripts, east bound by truck, Roman out.” He closed his scroll, stuffing it into the only pocket of his thin, white, button up shirt. 

Perry approached slowly, curious, “why didn't you tell her it was Pyrrha Nikos.”

For a moment, Roman had the look of a very tired man before turning to his underling and shrugging. “It would be embarrassing if I was wrong, now wouldn't it?”

“High priority target?” Blake repeated. Her and Sun returned to their attentive listening, but were quickly disappointed.

The doe lady picked up her scroll and dialed a number, but left the room as she did so, leaving the two eavesdroppers deaf to her intentions.

Before they knew it, the sounds of a airship revving up filled the air. Being in the shack near the air strip, they could look out a small window and see handful of people boarding a ship.

“No flights are scheduled for the morning,” Sun pointed out.

“I guess it can't hurt to ask them what's going on.” Slapping her now freshly healed leg, Blake got up from her seat and headed for the door. 

“What if it's a pursuit team for the target person,” Sun inquired, worried.

She shrugged, “it should still be safe to ask why the sudden flight. They don't know we know.”

Stepping outside, the dry desert air was far cooler than the humid smog inside the shack, and it relieved the faunus girl greatly. Jogging towards the active ship, she could make out an interesting line up of people hiking up the ramp. First, there were three faunus in what appeared to be a version of the White Fang uniform that included sleeves and a lot less white accents and a full mask. Second, she recognized the wolf faunus that arrived with Roman was aboard, but now had a large sword across his back. And lastly, a womanly figure in a tan poncho and straw hat whom she had never seen before.

She yelled to them something she thought safe, “hey! There's no scheduled flights for the next twelve hours!”

However, the moment she opened her mouth, Blake's lamented every decision leading up to her doing this. The woman in the poncho turned to look at her, sunglasses covering her face, though Blake could make out orange hair in a pony tail. As the ship began to lift off and retract its ramp, the poncho lady opted to leave the ship and walked off, falling several feet but never breaking her new stride.

Blake began to recognize her. She was the woman Ren and Blake encountered in the penthouse in Atlas. They ran from her, and Ren had to fight off four assailants while Blake herself avoided confrontation altogether. Not this time apparently. The woman pulled a knife from behind her back and charged.

“You bitch!” she screamed, now dashing, poncho fluttering behind her.

Blake touched her face; mask-less. It wasn't too unusual to do in camp, especially with the heat, but without it, this woman apparently took no time at all to identify Blake.

She reached behind her back out of habit, but felt, besides dread, a distinct lack of her weapon. It was still wrapped up and under her personal sleeping bag.

By late dinner time, Ruby was just barely getting over the shock of her eyes. As she sat at the table, surrounded by her squad, she pondered how she would approach her friends about this mystifying occurrence. How did it happen, why, when exactly, and what did it mean, these thoughts running on loop in her mind while she stared at a bowl of stew.

Inside one of the cottages, squads two and three gathered for a well earned meal, the secondary landing party finishing their work for them outside. Jaune and the others were outside too, though Ruby forgot what their tasks were. The soldiers around her sat down and ate and bantered, seemingly ignorant to all the troubles in the world, perfectly able to set aside some time to empty their heads.

Why couldn't she do that anymore?

Grimm, psychos, malevolent conspirators, she knew she knew about these things before, and could sleep soundly. Now, bags hung below her eyes for the nightmares she had each night.

Cat and Cry sat on either side of her, loud and lively, setting their helmets on their laps. “Hey, Isaac,” the brunette woman smiled, “what stinks?”

Cry whipped his spoon out to point in her direction, “hey! I stepped in shit, it's not me, fight me.” They shared a laugh.

But what about these brother and sisters in arms, thought Ruby. In some ways, they had more to be fearful of. They may have been talented, granted, but unlike Ruby, they were more bound by reality in a fight, more in danger of stray fire, overwhelming numbers of Grimm, and general obstacles. Yet still they could laugh on the front lines of their deaths. They would sleep soundly.

Cry started a short story, “when I was ten, my cat pissed in my pant's drawer—”

 

“Cat pissed in your drawers?” Dusk grinned, getting laughs from all around. Cat threw a dirtied rag at him, then playfully sneered at him.

“No, ha, my cat, little bastard, pissed on all my pants. My Mom said that no one would notice, but that's only because I later found out that she was nose blind.”

“Ah shit,” said someone through a mouthful of stew.

“Yeah, when I went to school the next day, damn son... no one let me live that down, I smelled almost as bad as Roy here,” Cry finished, pointing at the man who owned the 'X' helmet. Everyone jeered once more and conversations resumed.

Ruby smiled too. She couldn't blame Dusk for his anger towards her from earlier, for whenever she watched them interact, she remembered that they're family to each other like how her team and Jaune's group was to each other. Only now, she didn't even know where Blake or Pyrrha were.

Thinking back, the classroom settings of Beacon felt childish and fake, and the natural chemistry between these soldiers conflicted greatly of what Ruby remembered different students sharing in school. Aside from her and her friends, the hunters academy kept youngsters meant for advanced combat and gave them a safe playground to practice their skills, let them stick in teams to have an easier time, and left them to their own devices. The end result, as far as she could tell, was a disheartening number of well trained children who were still unprepared for the worse, scared and undisciplined. Many couldn't even get along with each other, bullying like what Cardin did only stopped because Yatsuhashi put him in his place some rainy afternoon.

Ruby felt like that setting never made sense. Like they didn't belong, but that feeling, oddly enough, was absent now.

She had seen many bad things, done similar, and still had to sit in class lectures with immature teenagers. Now she sat with adults, willing to kill, willing to die, and willing to laugh it off when it's over. They fought together, teamwork their greatest asset. An odd sense of comfort overcame her. 

Maybe she wasn't one of them, but the more she thought about it, the more willing Ruby felt to fight. If she could help them, maybe it would ease her mind.

“You going to eat that?” Dusk asked her, gesturing to her untouched dinner. As he finished speaking, his head jerked to face the door behind Ruby, eyes sharp. Cry and Cat both noticed. Their hands felt for their helmets.

Ruby instead noticed the medic speak from across the noisy table, “you really should, you're still looking too thin to be healthy.”

The youngest of the bunch, the one known as Smiley, turned to Roy and muttered, “you know he likes 'em 'healthy', those blood pressure readings really get him hot and bothered.”

“Well I guess you could say,” Roy returned, “that it gets his blood boiling.”

“Pfft, that was bad—”

The door behind Ruby opened with the subtlest of creaks, but it was more than enough to silence everybody. An arm reached in, setting down a larger brown paper bag by the door before closing once more. Ticking could be heard.

In an instant, half the people in the room shoved on their helmets while Ruby turned to look at what everyone else was wide eyed at. In tandem, Cry and Cat wrapped their bodies around the rose and threw themselves under the table.

Two explosions sounded like one, and the room was redecorated in a flash of light.

-End Chapter 6-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dammit, I just realized I called a Bullhead a Bullpup in the last chapter again, I swore I wouldn't do this.


End file.
